The bans on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” ironic in this age of gangsta rap lyrics full of violent rape imagery and open and unapologetic misogyny, are being rolled back here and there after listener outcries, but they’re still instructive. They show an intersection of Sharia sensibilities with the harsh and angry puritanism of some radical feminists.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s great theorist Sayyid Qutb has been called “the father of modern [Islamic] fundamentalism.” He sharpened his distaste for the West while living in the United States from November 1948 to August 1950. His disgust with the gaudy materialism of postwar America was intense, and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was, for him, Exhibit A of American decadence. In Greeley, Colorado, where he lived for a short time, he was thoroughly scandalized by a dance after an evening service at a local church: “The dancing intensified. . . . The hall swarmed with legs . . . Arms circled arms, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of love.” The pastor further scandalized Qutb by dimming the lights, creating “a romantic, dreamy effect,” and playing a popular record of the day: “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” He regarded American popular music in general with a gimlet eye: “Jazz is the favorite music [of America]. It is a type of music invented by [American] Blacks to please their primitive tendencies and desire for noise.”
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” provides one clue to the recurring question of how the Left and Sharia supremacists could ally.
“CBC reinstates Baby, It’s Cold Outside amid audience reaction,” CBC News, December 11, 2018:
Citing audience input, CBC has reversed its decision to remove the holiday track Baby, It’s Cold Outside from seasonal playlists….
In late November, a Cleveland radio station announced it had stopped playing Baby, It’s Cold Outside in response to listeners who took issue with the call-and-response tune, in which one singer attempts to cajole the other to stick around and not leave.
Other U.S. stations followed suit, though several — including stations in San Francisco and Denver — have also added the tune back onto their playlists after conducting listener polls.
Last week, CBC and two other broadcasters noted the song had been removed from their musical rotations this year, sparking multiple headlines, opinion pieces and vigorous debate on social media. The controversy also appeared to send different versions of the song up holiday sales and streaming charts, according to music outlet Billboard.
Bell Media, which runs a pair of 24-hour Christmas stations, said it hadn’t included Baby, It’s Cold Outside on its playlist this year and didn’t plan to reintroduce it in the future, according to a spokesperson.
Rogers, which operates several all-Christmas music stations, said last week it had removed the song without noting a reason why. There is no change to the earlier decision, Caitlin Decarie, communications manager for Rogers Radio, said Tuesday afternoon.