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It's Political Correctness Gone Mad!


Devon Malcolm

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31 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

Looking forward to copying that post about Pogues on Facebook and pretending it’s my own opinion, good stuff. 

Hey, there are worse posts you could be Chilli Dogging.

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Re: The 'Oh baby it's cold outside' chat from earlier. Just read this take on Reddit. For the record, I don't have an opinion either way, but I thought it was interesting. 

Quote

 

It’s time to bring an end to the Rape Anthem Masquerading As Christmas Carol

Hi there! Former English nerd/teacher here. Also a big fan of jazz of the 30s and 40s.

So. Here’s the thing. Given a cursory glance and applying today’s worldview to the song, yes, you’re right, it absolutely sounds like a rape anthem.

BUT! Let’s look closer!

“Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol.

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do — and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.” But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink — unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?” It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren’t supposed to have sexual agency.

Basically, the song only makes sense in the context of a society in which women are expected to reject men’s advances whether they actually want to or not, and therefore it’s normal and expected for a lady’s gentleman companion to pressure her despite her protests, because he knows she would have to say that whether or not she meant it, and if she really wants to stay she won’t be able to justify doing so unless he offers her an excuse other than “I’m staying because I want to.” (That’s the main theme of the man’s lines in the song, suggesting excuses she can use when people ask later why she spent the night at his house: it was so cold out, there were no cabs available, he simply insisted because he was concerned about my safety in such awful weather, it was perfectly innocent and definitely not about sex at all!) In this particular case, he’s pretty clearly right, because the woman has a voice, and she’s using it to give all the culturally-understood signals that she actually does want to stay but can’t say so.** She states explicitly that she’s resisting because she’s supposed to, not because she wants to: “I ought to say no no no…” She states explicitly that she’s just putting up a token resistance so she’ll be able to claim later that she did what’s expected of a decent woman in this situation: “at least I’m gonna say that I tried.”** And at the end of the song they’re singing together, in harmony, because they’re both on the same page and they have been all along.

So it’s not actually a song about rape - in fact it’s a song about a woman finding a way to exercise sexual agency in a patriarchal society designed to stop her from doing so. But it’s also, at the same time, one of the best illustrations of rape culture that pop culture has ever produced. It’s a song about a society where women aren’t allowed to say yes…which happens to mean it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no.

Edit: Since this comment picked up so much steam, just going to point out that it is a copy-paste of the top comment when this video was posted a couple days ago (linked in first line). Fuck reposts.

 

 

 

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I've seen that argument a fair bit, and while it's interesting, does it matter? It's all well and good saying, "the context of the song when it was written is...", but is that the context it would be understood in now? Is it not just another way of making the "it was a different time, it was acceptable then" argument?

 

It's a shit song anyway.

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On 12/6/2018 at 2:18 PM, PowerButchi said:

I don't mind what they do, just as long as they don't go after Another Rock and Roll Christmas.

Clearly an allegory for child rape.

Santa = Glitter

Another Rock and Roll Christmas = Rape

It's good to see friends I know
Kissing under the mistletoe
I love to hear the children sing
It looks like Santa's gonna bring

Another Rock 'N' Roll Christmas
Another Christmas Rock N Roll
Presents hanging from the tree
You'll never guess what you've got from me

Another Rock 'N' Roll Christmas
Another Christmas Rock 'N' Roll
We better hold each other tight
You never know it might snow tonight

Guys and Girls
Stay up late
So excited…

Also those last three lines - don't transgender and gender neutral children get to enjoy Christmas too?

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1 hour ago, David said:

Here's an idea, if anyone is offended by the fucking song just don't listen to it. Simple.

I heard it yesterday, I was in a shopping centre and it was on the PA system so I tried not to listen but it didn't work.

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