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We saw this clip of Columbia University History Professor Christopher Brown and wanted to share it far and wide. Dr. Brown delivered these remarks on Monday, April 20 at a faculty-led “Rally to Support our Students and Reclaim our University.” He was responding to two events: Columbia President Minouche Shafik’s Congressional Testimony on April 17 and the arrest of more than 100 Columbia students the next day.
Professor Brown focuses on what is happening at Columbia but his words serve as a powerful rejoinder to any and all:
* grandstanding politicians, who have no real understanding or appreciation of the mission of higher education
* timid academic leaders, who lack the wherewithal to stand up for faculty and make a case for the transcendent values of academic freedom and open inquiry
Here is a transcript of Professor Brown’s remarks:
Good afternoon. I’m Christopher Brown, professor in the history department. This is the first time I’ve ever held a microphone at a protest of any kind. I’m not sure whether that’s something to take pride in or not but I say it because this is not typical for me.
I’m here because I am so concerned about what has happened at this university. With where we are now and with where we are going.
Thursday, April 18, 2024 will be remembered as a shameful day in Columbia’s history.
The President’s decision to send riot police to pick up peaceful protesters on our campus was unprecedented, unjustified, disproportionate, divisive and dangerous. We are fortunate. We don’t know how fortunate we are. We are fortunate that no one was hurt.
With that kind of show of force. With all those firearms, all it takes is one person to get nervous, a table to fall, a car or truck to backfire out on Amsterdam Avenue. Shots fired. The New York Police Department does not belong on this campus except in moments of extreme emergency.
And that show of force was a sign of weakness. In trying to show that they meant business, what they showed was their incompetence.
I want to say one other thing. And that’s about the congressional testimony on Wednesday. And this is about academic freedom. It’s also about Columbia.
In three hours of testimony, the president of the university, to my mind, showed no pride in our institution. She said nothing meaningful about the virtues of this institution, of its people, of its faculty, of its staff, of its researchers--their dedication to excellence, their commitment to their students, the quality of the undergraduates and graduate students that we have here, the distinctive record of academic accomplishment and impact, the variety and rigor of the scholarship which is happening here today, the prospects for continued excellence. She didn’t say anything about any of those things.
She allowed slander of our institution to stand without rebuke. Soviet style education, no response. Intolerant bigots, no response. I know these folks and you know them too. That’s not who we are and she should know that.
There were members of Congress who wanted to decide who should be disciplined on this institution and how much, what should be taught, how it should be taught, who should teach, what academic department should exist and which should not, who should lose their leadership positions, who should be promoted, who should be fired.
Those are academic questions. Those are not congressional questions.
What is at stake? What is at stake is not just faculty governance. It’s institutional independence. It’s the sovereignty of Columbia University and every university like this one.
The United States has the greatest colleges and universities in the world and that’s why people come from around the world to study here, to research here and to teach here. That’s our inheritance. The universities like this one. And we would be fools not to defend it in every corner from those who do not believe in the academic mission and the pursuit of academic excellence.
So I have no confidence in her leadership. I’m speaking only for myself. I have no confidence in the president’s leadership. With what she has said and with what she has not said; and with what she has done and what she has not done, she has forfeited the privilege to lead this great university.
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We recently appeared on "How Do We Fix It?", a wonderful podcast in search of constructive and practical ideas to address the many problems that plague our age. We had a fantastic time talking to the hosts Richard Davies and Jim Meigs about free speech, academic freedom and campus politics. We discussed DEI, Inc.—what the term means and why we think it’s useful. And we argued that an ascendant discourse of harm is at the heart of today’s threats to campus free expression, from the chilling effects of many DEI initiatives to the even chillier effects of anti-CRT legislation like Florida’s Stop WOKE Act. Thank you to Richard and Jim for giving us their permission to post our discussion on Banished.
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Celebrated as the bedrock of democracy, freedom of expression is often seen as an American or western value. Yet the concept has a rich and global history. In the spring of 2023 I offered a course on the global history of free expression. The course tracks the long and turbulent history of freedom of expression from ancient Athens and medieval Islamic societies to the Enlightenment and the drive for censorship in totalitarian and colonial societies.
For the final assignment I asked students to write a letter to a person of their choosing reflecting on how their learning in class made them rethink the parameters of speech and expression in their own contexts. For the next few episodes I’ll be featuring some of the student letters that deserve a wider audience.
This episode features my former student, Aishwarya Varma, reading her letter to her friend Grace. Aishwarya graduated from Carleton College in 2023 and is now a software engineer at Target.
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Worse than McCarthyism? In this episode of Banished, we explore the all-out assault on academic freedom in higher education in Florida. Turns out there’s a long history of campus witch-hunts in the state. We spoke with Robert Cassenello (history professor at University of Central Florida), Paul Ortiz (history professor at the University of Florida), James Grossman (executive director of the American Historical Association) and Ellen Schrecker (professor emerita at Yeshiva University). Episode transcript available here.
References & Links:
* Will Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" Hold Up in Court?, Banished podcast episode, November 1, 2022.
* Stacy Braukman, Communists and Perverts Under the Palms: The Johns Committee in Florida, 1956-1965, University Press of Florida, 2012.
* Daniel Golden, “‘It’s Making Us More Ignorant’: Governor Ron DeSantis’s anti-critical-race-theory legislation is already changing how professors in Florida teach,” Atlantic, January 3, 2023.
* Karen L. Graves, And They Were Wonderful Teachers: Florida’s Purge of Gay and Lesbian Teachers, University of Illinois Press, 2009.
* Josh Moody, “DeSantis Aims to Turn Public College Into ‘Hillsdale of the South,’” Inside Higher Ed, January 11, 2023.
* Emma Pettit, “The Inquisition: State intrusion on higher ed is nothing new. Decades ago, Florida lawmakers tried to purge campus ‘immorality,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 2022.
* Pettit, “‘Private Little Hell’: A Florida committee once hunted for gay people on Florida’s campuses. Sixty years later, the effects linger,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 28, 2022.
* Pettit, “A Florida University Is Quickly Assembling a List of Courses on Diversity. Why? DeSantis Asked,” January 3, 2023.
* Victor Ray, “Florida Man Calls the Thought Police,” The Nation, January 11, 2022.
* Christopher Rufo, "The Conservative Counter-Revolution Begins in the Universities,” YouTube, January 12, 2023.
* Ellen Schrecker, “Yes, These Bills Are the New McCarthyism,” Academe Blog, September 12, 2021.
* Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities, Oxford University Press, 1986.
* Adam Steinbaugh, “Why Florida’s betrayal of the First Amendment to ‘Stop WOKE’ should concern everyone, including conservatives,” November 29, 2022.
* Cathy Young, “Ron DeSantis, Chris Rufo, and the College Anti-Woke Makeover,” The Bulwark, January 16, 2023.
* United Faculty of Florida website; UFF Collective Bargaining Agreement
* “The Committee,” documentary film about the Florida Legislative Investigative Committee (or “Johns Committee”)
* Florida HB 7 (aka the Stop WOKE Act)
* Florida HB 233
Related
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Banished returns with a special episode on the status of a lawsuit challenging Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act.” To understand how this law threatens open inquiry and academic freedom, Amna talked to the two co-plaintiffs, University of South Florida history professor Adriana Novoa and University of South Florida senior Sam Rechek. For help with the legal arguments, Amna spoke with Adam Steinbaugh, attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
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Tucker Carlson claimed that tacos are American. Rick Bayless was attacked for appropriating Mexican cuisine. Jamie Oliver hired a team of cultural appropriation specialists to advise him when writing recipes, to make sure he didn’t run afoul of the new culinary orthodoxy.
What’s going on in the restaurant world and at our dinner tables? Who exactly owns a cuisine, and why do we get so proprietary when it comes to food? On this week’s Banished, Amna Khalid talks with Constanza Ocampo-Raeder, professor of anthropology at Carleton College, about food, national cuisines and the politics of cultural appropriation.
Note from Amna: Banished is taking a hiatus, but you can always continue to follow my thoughts on Twitter @AmnaUncensored, and my work at amnakhalid.com. Thank you for listening!
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Amna Khalid talks with Laura Bates, Professor of English at Indiana State University and founder of Shakespeare in Shackles — a prison program for those in solitary confinement — about the Bard’s decline in the modern curriculum.
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One of the most popular musicals of all time, Grease seems to have fallen from grace. Most recently, two schools in Australia were planning to stage a joint production of the musical this year, but shelved it when students complained that the content of the musical was “offensive.”
Why has the musical come under fire? Is it time to retire it? On this week’s Banished, Amna Khalid speaks with Scott Miller, founder and artistic director of New Line Theater, an alternative musical theater company in St. Louis.
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Earlier this year, St. Olaf College’s Institute for Freedom and Community invited controversial bioethicist Peter Singer for a virtual conversation titled “The Point of View of the Universe.” This was an invitation in keeping with the mission of the institute, which is to explore “diverse ideas about politics, markets, and society” and “challenge presuppositions, question easy answers, and foster constructive dialogue.” Shortly after the event was announced, St. Olaf’s disability office sent out a campus-wide email, stating that it: “unequivocally reject[s] Peter Singer’s views on people with disabilities, which are harmful to our values, mission and ongoing efforts to provide an inclusive environment for our students, faculty and staff.”
This week came news that the IFC’s director, Professor Edmund Santurri, would no longer helm the institute. His directorship had been rescinded. In today’s special episode, Amna Khalid speaks with Santurri about what exactly led to his termination.
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In fall 2021, the philosophy department at Rhodes College invited the bioethicist Peter Singer to speak to the school. A controversial and important figure, the New Yorker has called Singer the “world’s most influential living philosopher,” and in 2005, Time Magazine named him one of most influential people alive.
But as one of the world’s foremost utilitarian philosophers, some of Singer’s positions have earned him detractors. In the build-up to his talk on “Pandemic Ethics,” several Rhodes students and faculty waged a campaign to have him disinvited on the grounds that “his reprehensible beliefs … deny the very humanity of people with disabilities.”
At a time when other schools like MIT were cancelling speakers deemed problematic, the philosophy department at Rhodes stood firm. In today’s episode, host Amna Khalid speaks with department chair Rebecca Tuvel and professor Daniel Cullen about how and why they refused to disinvite Singer.
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In February 2020, The Lancet, a leading British medical journal, published a statement by more than two dozen scientists condemning the hypothesis that COVID-19 had leaked from a Chinese lab — effectively halting scientific inquiry along those lines. But a handful of researchers refused to rule out the so-called “lab-leak” theory and soon found themselves shunned and ostracized by their colleagues.
Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and then-postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, was one such researcher. This week on Banished, host Amna Khalid talks with Chan about the politicization of science.
More from Booksmart Studios:
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If you’re a solver of crossword puzzles, you probably know that Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. But that was just the beginning. Historians Peter Hicks and Rafe Blaufarb tell us the full story.
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Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine and host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, was a regular writer for Scientific American for 18 years. With more than 200 monthy columns under his belt, he was hoping to match Stephen Jay Gould’s record run of 300 at Natural History and was due to hit his target within a few years. In December, 2018, however, he was abruptly let go.
In this episode of Banished, Amna Khalid talks to Shermer about the souring of his relationship with SciAm, the importance of skepticism and the rise of censoriousness in recent years.
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Badiucao is a Chinese political dissident and artist who self-exiled to Australia in 2009. In the buildup to the Beijing Olympics, he was catapulted into the limelight for a series of protest posters that at first glance seem like advertisements for the Games. On closer inspection, however, the images are a scathing visual commentary on the Chinese government’s human rights violations and the role of the Olympic Games in legitimizing the regime. In this episode of Banished, Amna Khalid speaks with Badiucao about his work, his activism and his life as a dissident.
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Over the past five years or so, free speech — like so many other topics — has been weaponized for use in the culture wars. Far right media sources have embraced the free speech mantle, arguing that liberals and progressives who dominate higher education are silencing conservative voices. For many Republicans, “free speech” means having the right to express an opinion, regardless of how unfounded and unsubstantiated it may be. As a consequence, many on the left now incorrectly view free speech as a right-wing ideal.
In this episode of Banished, Amna Khalid discusses the history and legacy of free speech with Jacob Mchangama, a Danish lawyer, human-rights advocate and author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, newly published by Basic Books.
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Michael Phillips has taught history at Collin College in Texas for the past 14 years, but after speaking out about the school’s anti-masking policy his contract was not renewed. Which makes him the fourth faculty member to lose his job there since Neil Matkin assumed the role of College President in 2015.
Amna Khalid spoke with Phillips about what led to his firing, and about academic freedom more generally in American higher education.
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During her visit back to Pakistan in December, Banished host Amna Khalid spoke with Salima Hashimi — artist, curator, activist and former principal of the National College of Arts, the premier Art school of Pakistan. They discussed the state of free expression in Pakistan under the 11-year military regime of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who was a key ally of the United States in the Cold War; how things are now under a democratically elected government; and how she sees cancellation attempts to constrain free speech in the U.S.
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In the age of “cancel culture,” it comes as no surprise that the publishing industry is cowering before demands to remove “problematic” books. Dr. Seuss’s estate recently announced that it will no longer allow the publication and licensing of six of his books because of the racist and stereotypical imagery used for minority groups.
Should these books no longer be published? Does a single stereotypical representation justify the pulling of a book? And who gets to decide? On this episode of Banished, Amna Khalid discusses Dr. Seuss’s life and legacy with Brian Jay Jones, author of Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination.
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Broadway-bound songsmith Frank Loesser wrote “Baby It’s Cold Outside” as a call-and-response duet for he and his wife to perform at parties. Several years later, the tune made its way into a movie and soon took the Christmas canon by storm. But is it a “rapey” relic of a bygone era that should be buried permanently in the winter snow? Amna Khalid investigates.
Happy New Year! In the warm and generous spirit of the holidays, we’re offering 30% off a subscription to Booksmart Studios until the end of the year. You’ll get extra written content and access to bonus segments and written transcripts like this one. More importantly, you’ll be championing all the work we do here. Become a member of Booksmart Studios today. Thank you for your support.
* TRANSCRIPT *
MAN: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Do we have any more requests?WOMAN: Baby, It's Cold Outside!MAN: I think we can make that happen. Who wants to take the duet?
AMNA KHALID: In the new Netflix rom-com Love Hard, Josh volunteers to sing a duet with his girlfriend — his pretend girlfriend, actually — Natalie:
JOSH: Natalie and I got this one, Dad.
KHALID: The two are out caroling with his family in snowy Lake Placid.
NATALIE: Over my cold, dead, lifeless body. I am not singing that — that is like the sexual assault theme song.
KHALID: Natalie refuses at first to sing that Christmas song, because, you know, it's that song — the one in which a man is possibly pressuring a woman into spending the night. But Josh has an idea.
JOSH: Look, this is what we’re gonna do, okay? You just do your part. I will change my lyrics so the song doesn't sound so, uh, rapey. NATALIE: Fine, let's just get this over with.JOSH: Dad, hit it.
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NATALIE: I really can’t stayJOSH: No problem, there’s the doorNATALIE: I’ve got to go awayJOSH: I hear you, say no moreNATALIE: This evening has beenJOSH: Totally consensualNATALIE: So very niceJOSH: I hope you get home safe tonight
KHALID: It's become fashionable in recent years to alter the lyrics of Baby, It's Cold Outside to make them less “rapey,” as the character Josh put it. Others have pushed back, however. The song, they claim, is about a desirous woman battling not the unwanted advances of her date but the unsolicited judgment of society.
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LYNN GARLAND: I really can't stayFRANK LOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: I've got to go awayLOESSER: But Baby, it's cold outsideGARLAND: This evening has been —LOESSER: Been hoping that you'd drop inGARLAND: So very niceLOESSER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
KHALID: I'm Amna Khalid. On this episode of Banished, The Bother with Baby.
CHRIS WILLMAN: The song was written in 1944 as a song that Frank Loesser and his wife originally sang at a housewarming party.
KHALID: Chris Willman is a longtime music journalist, currently at Variety.
WILLMAN: Kind of like, the night’s about to end, we’re about to kick you out, and here’s a song about whether to stay or whether to go.
KHALID: Wow, I would have loved to be at that party.
WILLMAN: Oh, yeah. And apparently they performed it over a period of years to the point that, when it was licensed for a film in 1949, Frank Loesser’s wife resented it. She may have been joking, but she was resentful that it was no longer their private thing because they were such a hit on the party circuit with it.
KHALID: The song existed in private for five years, sung only by Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland. The two made one of the very first recordings of the song, which we’re listening to now.
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LOESSER: Baby, make my conscious your guideGARLAND: I really can't stay LOESSER: Oh, Baby, don't hold outGARLAND AND LOESSER: Ah but it's cold outsideLOESSER/GARLAND in the clear
KHALID: Baby was evocative of the holidays, it was redolent of cigarettes and booze and, yes, it was sexually suggestive.
GARLAND: And it was our song.
KHALID: That’s Lynn Garland from the documentary Heart and Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser:
GARLAND: And we became the most desired guests at parties from coast to coast. And we never failed to slam.
KHALID: Garland recalled once that, "Parties were built around our being the closing act.”
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LOESSER: I thrill when you touch my handGARLAND: But don't you see? LOESSER: How can you do this thing to me?
KHALID: It was merely the opening act, however, for the song itself. Baby was such a sensation at private gatherings that Loesser worked it into his score for the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter. This would be the first time anyone heard the song outside of someone’s living room.
WILLMAN: And when it went public in 1949 it kind of exploded. Immediately, people started covering it. My favorite version of the song, by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting. I think that was the biggest hit anyone had with it that year.
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WHITING: I really can't stayMERCER: But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: I've got to go awayMERCER: But Baby, it's cold outsideWHITING: This evening has beenMERCER: Been hoping that you'd drop inWHITING: So very niceMERCER: I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
KHALID: No fewer than 10 separate recordings were made in 1949 alone. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Doris Day, Dinah Shore. They all put their stamp on the song, but the version you’re probably most familiar with is the one that Chris Willman prefers. The one you hear on adult contemporary radio stations every December, when they switch over to an all holiday format. The classic recording by Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting.
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WHITING: To break the spell MERCER: I'll take your hat, your hairs looks swellWHITING: I ought to say no, no, no sir MERCER: Mind if I move in closer?
WILLMAN: I like it partly because it sounds like 1949. It really puts you in that era where these people are really playing out these roles. I think when people do modern versions it sounds kind of ridiculous because you don’t really buy it, that they have to go through this dance. It’s coming through the same radio where we hear all these incredibly sexually — not just suggestive but explicit songs — and so it’s hard to hear modern singers and still have that sense of reserve and that there are these restrictions on what they have to go through. And for some reason the sexual heat seems more intensified to me when it sounds like it’s happening in that era. Johnny Mercer sounds horny when he’s doing it.
KHALID: Yeah!
WILLMAN: And Margaret Whiting too. And then, you know, when you hear Willie Nelson and Norah Jones doing it, it’s just not the same.
KHALID: And that’s precisely the question for many modern listeners of the song. It may be apparent that Mercer feels the “sexual heat” — but what about Margaret Whiting? Is she feeling it too? That all depends on how you choose to interpret the lyrics, or, in the case of Neptune’s Daughter, what you choose to see on the screen.
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ESTHER WILLIAMS: I really can't stayRICARDO MONTALBAN: Baby, it's cold outsideWILLIAMS: I've got to go awayMONTALBAN: But Baby, it's cold outside
KHALID: In the 1949 movie, Ricardo Montalban repeatedly tugs at the arm of Esther Williams. He pulls her gently back onto the couch and even removes her hat and stole when she puts them on to leave. To 21st century sensibilities, this pas de deux can seem more predatory than playful. But that's not likely the way that audiences viewed it 70 plus years ago, when Baby won best original song at the 22nd Academy Awards.
COLE PORTER: The winner is Frank Loser for “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” (Applause)
KHALID: That was Cole Porter presenting Loesser with his one and only Oscar, for a song that stumbled from parlor to parlor on the party circuit, into the motion pictures and onto your Spotify holiday playlist. Or maybe you’ve deleted it from the playlist. Because it’s that song. Chris Willman.
WILLMAN: And I never imagined it being controversial, in my naïvete. And then I remember going to an Aimee Mann Christmas show, sometime in the early 2000s I think. And she was having a dialogue onstage with a comedian, and they started talking about quote/unquote rapey the song was and why doesn’t anybody notice that — comically taking off on some of the more sort of, possibly predatorial aspects that people might pick up on in the song. And then all of a sudden in the late 2000s, this becomes a serious topic of debate. And that kind of shocked me, how seriously people were taking the idea that the song was quote-unquote “rapey.”
REPORTER: A Bay-area radio station has now yanked the song from its airwaves.REPORTER: Well you won’t be hearing it on WDOK in Cleveland. The radio station’s decided to pull the song from their playlist.WOMAN: You know, it’s a sweet, flirty, fun holiday song.REPORTER: Is it a song about Christmas or creepy behavior? That’s the debate that has led radio station KOIT to ban a popular holiday tune from the airwaves.REPORTER: And you know what? It’s giving people yet another thing to disagree about.
WILLMAN: Really in the late 2000s was when it reached peak controversy with radio stations suddenly banning it. The CBC said they were taking it off the air in Canada. There were stations in San Francisco and Denver and somewhere else that said we’re getting rid of the song. But certainly there were lots of serious essays being written too, from a feminist perspective, about how times have changed, people need to recognize that the song celebrates sexual coersion. And then there was the backlash to the backlash from people like me, saying: No, this song is not what you think it is or what you’ve come to believe it is. It’s actually very feminist, very sex-positive to use kind of a corny term.
KHALID: According to Chris Willman and other fans of the song, it’s a mistake to interpret the song as if it were written today. Not only is that ahistorical, it’s simply incorrect. Simply put, the song doesn’t mean what many think it means.
WILLMAN: People who read it as a date rape song would seize on things like What’s in this drink? As if the guy had placed a drug in her drink. Which is a very contemporary reading because nobody was talking about date rape drugs in 1949, and the, you know, real interpretation of the lyric is that it’s just a strong drink. But reading further into it, she’s trying to pass off the excuse for her own sexual desire onto these things like, “It must be the alcohol affecting me.” But she is the one saying maybe just a cigarette more or maybe half a drink more. It’s really about her putting up every excuse she can think of for why people might not think it was right that she spent the night. You know, one of the key lines to me is I ought to say no, no, no. She’s not saying I want to say no, no, no. It’s I ought to. Just in that word choice alone I think you understand where the song is coming from circa 1949, those expectations of society.
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ELLA FITZGERALD: I really can't stayLOUIS JORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outsideFITZGERALD: I got to go awayJORDAN: But Baby, it's cold outside
KHALID: In the mid-1940s, the idea that a woman would desire casual sex was taboo. For her to say as much explicity would be deemed “prurient” by network censors, and so Loesser had no choice but to employ subtext.
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FITZGERALD: And father will be pacing the floorJORDAN: Listen to the fireplace roar
KHALID: In the version you’re listening to now, also recorded in 1949, you hear Ella Fitzgerald chafing at the double standard, when her reputation as a Lady would be ruined if word got out that she stayed the night. Meanwhile, Louis Jordan is free to plead his case for a one-night stand.
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BETTY CARTER: I really can't stay RAY CHARLES: Betty, it's cold outside
KHALID: Loesser uses musical counterpoint to underscore that Baby is more conversation than conquest. It’s a technique you may recall from his opening number to Guys and Dolls — but his mastery of it is evident in the brilliant 1961 recording of Baby by Ray Charles and Betty Carter. Here Carter emerges from the stifling hypocrisy of the 1950s onto the cusp of a more liberated decade. Both Charles and Carter are softly stepping onto each others’ toes as they negotiate their roles and desires.
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CHARLES: Beautiful, please don’t hurry.CARTER: Well, maybe just a half a drink moreCHARLES: Why don’t you put some records on while I pour CARTER: The neighbors might thinkCHARLES: Betty, it’s bad out there CARTER: Say, what’s in this drink? CHARLES: No cabs to be had out there
KHALID: Carter is perhaps weary of having to pretend and — without her friends and family fretting and finger-wagging — might make known her own sexual appetite. That’s what Lady Gaga did when she and Joseph Gordon-Levitt gender swapped the parts back in 2013 on the Muppets Holiday Spectacular:
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GORDON-LEVITT: I really can't stay GAGA: But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: I've got to go away GAGA: But Baby, it's cold outsideGORDON-LEVITT: This evening has been GAGA: Been hoping that you'd drop inGORDON-LEVITT: So very nice GAGA: I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
KHALID: But Gaga wasn’t the first woman to bare her libido in the song.
WILLMAN: The woman who helped popularize the song, Zooey Deschanel in Elf, she’s part of a duo called She & Him. They introduced it into their repertoire when they made a Christmas album (and they’re doing a tour this year) where they did a role reversal on the song. I think that’s alright. I mean, there’s a tradition of doing a role reversal with the song that goes back to the original movie, Neptune’s Daughter, where first you see Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams doing it the way you know it. And then there’s a more comedic reprise where Red Skelton and I believe Betty Garrett do it and she’s virtually attacking him to the point that it almost seems really predatorial in that regard.
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SKELTON: I really can't stay GARRETT: But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: I've got to go away GARRETT: But Baby it's cold outsideSKELTON: This evening has been GARRETT: Been hoping that you'd drop inSKELTON: So very nice GARRETT: I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
WILLMAN: But then to hear Zooey Deschanel say that the only way they could do the song on their Christmas tour was to do the role reversal … made me kind of sad.
KHALID: For those who find Baby creepy, a role reversal, it turns out, is not the only way to perform the song. I said at the beginning that it’s become fashionable in recent years to simply rewrite the song. In 2016, Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski performed their updated lyrics on the Minnesota radio station The Current.
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LIZA: I really can't stayLEMANSKI: Baby I'm fine with thatLIZA: I've got to go away LEMANSKI: Baby I'm cool with thatLIZA: This evening has been LEMANSKI: Been hoping that you get home safeLIZA: So very nice LEMANSKI: I'm glad you had a real good timeLIZA: My mother will start to worry LEMANSKI: Call her so she knows you are comingLIZA: Father will be pacing the floor LEMANSKI: Better get your car a-hummingLIZA: So really I'd better scurry LEMANSKI: Take your time.LIZA: Should I use the front or back door?LEMANSKI: Which one are you pulling towards more?
KHALID: The video of this performance has been viewed well over a million times on YouTube alone. And that romantic comedy Love Hard — the one in which Josh changes the lyrics to make them less “rapey” — that’s been showing up on lists of the year’s best Christmas movies.
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NATALIE: Or maybe just a half a drink more.JOSH: Slow down, that’s quite a pour. NATALIE: The neighbors might think JOSH: Just my old friend Troy NATALIE: Say what's in this drink? JOSH: It’s just Lemon La CroixNATALIE: I wish I knew how JOSH: To take a hint? NATALIE: To break the spell JOSH: Do you know how to spell farewell? NATALIE: I ought to say no, no, no. JOSH: I’ll call you an Uber, they’re close. NATALIE: At least I can say I tried. JOSH: I feel like you’re not trying at all. NATALIE: I really can’t stay.JOSH: Well, maybe just go out. NATALIE: But Baby, it’s cold outside. JOSH: But Baby, just go outside.
KHALID: Some of these rewritten versions are admittedly clever and funny, but I confessed to Chris Willman that the controversy took me quite by surprise.
KHALID: And in part, I should say, it’s because of where I come from. You know, I come from Pakistan and I’ve grown up with Bollywood films — Bollywood films of the 70s and 80s — and, in that time period, any kind of explicit reference to sex or a sexual encounter or desire was, of course, not considered socially acceptable. Hence all these songs in Bollywood films. That’s their purpose, it’s to be suggestive. And this trope of one of them saying stay — usually the guy — and the girl saying No I must go because look at what the world will say if I stay is so commonplace in Bollywood. Have we gone to the other extreme where we’ve lost the sense of what constitutes romance and by overemphasizing the need for explicit consent and reading everything through that lens?
WILLMAN: Well it’s funny, that comes up when people have done rewritten lyrics, where they’re emphasizing consent. And I think initially that was done satirically, like at every turn the guy is saying, Well, yeah, maybe you should go … Get outta here, I’ll … sure, I’ll call Uber. And I thought that was a funny take on it, but then you see people seriously rewriting it. And first off the song is hilarious. Let’s just say that. It’s a comedic song. And when you’re gonna take the comedy out of it, along with the dance of seduction or agreement or whatever is happening and say, Would you sign this contract please? There’s not much of a song at that point. You know, it’s such a masterpiece, really, of songwriting — the way the rhyme scheme happens between the two different parts simultaneously back and forth, you know it’s very sophisticated as a duet. To take all that away and say that nothing is important about the rhymes, or the themes or the general tone of the song is really to lose the point.
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“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (1949) in Danish
WILLMAN: You know, it holds such a unique place in the Christmas canon, even though it’s not a Christmas song, because it is flirty and racy and you just hear so much Christmas music that is not really about romance. Or if it is, it's extremely schmaltzy. To hear two people come on who are suddenly expressing real feelings in these very funny and literate lyrics, there’s nothing else on the radio like it. There’s nothing that funny or that sexy in the Christmas music canon, and so even the people that think they should be offended by it can’t bring themselves to get rid of it.
KHALID: And that’s perhaps the song’s single greatest contradiction. Why hold onto it at all if we have to censor it? And yet there it is, year after year. More than 450 covers of the song and counting. Role reversals and rewrites and translations, including this Danish language recording that is among the very oldest, from 1949.
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Banished is produced by Matthew Schwartz and Mike Vuolo. And I, as always, am Amna Khalid.
CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this piece, the singer of the duet with Ray Charles was misidentified as Betty Page. The actual singer was Betty Carter.
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Last week, Harvard announced it will extend its test-optional admissions policy for at least another four years. The stated reason is that the pandemic has reduced access to test sites — but this decision has added grist to the test-elimination mill.
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