Funny Or Die Just Summed Up The Problem With "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
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A dark Funny or Die skit, starring comedian Casey Wilson, exposes the creepy nature of the Christmas classic "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which musician Frank Loesser wrote in 1944.
The Academy Award-winning song, which Loesser and his wife Lynn Garland famously sang together, tells the story of a man aggressively instructing a woman not to leave his home because the weather is bad. While many find the tune romantic because it implies that the two spend the night together, others have pointed out its rapey undertones. Wilson is the latest to point out the latter in her sketch with Scott Aukerman.
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In the video, Aukerman and Wilson belt out the lyrics to the song, with Aukerman drugging her drink to get her to stay. When she resists his gestures, he holds her down, stops her from leaving, and tapes her to a chair. A whimpering Wilson scrambles out of the seat and knocks him over with a shovel, all while singing the Christmas classic.
"This is Casey Wilson reminding you this is a completely inappropriate song," she says at the end of the video. "Happy holidays."
Many took to Twitter to share the video and highlight the general creepiness of the song.
Wilson isn't the first comedian to note the weirdness of the song in a skit. The Washington Post recently produced a video compilation of the best skits mocking "Baby, It's Cold Outside," including a recent "Saturday Night Live" one starring Keenan Thompson as Bill Cosby, who is currently being investigated for multiple sexual assault allegations. The clip also has a "Key and Peele" skit in which the lyrics have been changed to "Just Stay For the Night."
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"The lyrics haven’t changed; the female role in the duet has always been singing 'the answer is no' as the man pressures her to stay," wrote Washington Post journalist Jessica Contrera. "But society’s evolving views on the prevalence of rape, especially between non-strangers, has pushed criticism of a Christmas classic into the mainstream."
The issue of sexual assault has received more attention in recent years. One in five undergraduate women have experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault during college, according to a 2007 U.S. Department of Justice study. The number of women sexually assaulted in America is also likely much higher than statistics reveal, as nearly 70 percent of incidents are not reported, according to the Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
Last year, Dara Laine and John Weselcouch performed a "feminist approved" 38-second version of the song. Laine says she cannot stay and Weselcouch lets her leave. It's as simple as that.
