This is an interesting post about the similarities between the discourse surrounding the holiday song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and the Shakespeare play Macbeth. Similar debates have come up about the interpretation of each:
(via: Imgur)
Baby It’s Cold Outside and Macbeth
Thesis: “Baby it’s cold outside” == “Wake Up Little Susie”, and in both songs, the couple has already been boinking like bunnies.
In both songs, the girl has told her parents that she is going out for a wholesome date, whether to the movies or perhaps for dinner and a show; and in both songs the couple has instead been “otherwise engaged” (discretion, modesty, and the Broadcast Standards & Practices Office of the time preventing any more explicit discussion of their activities).
Susie and her boyfriend, presumably teenagers each living at home, may have been “parking by the lake and there was not another car in sight” if they live near Meatloaf, or may have “parked out by the tracks” with Nickelback, or perhaps they just found a convenient hayloft per a dozen different country & western songs. Relaxing in the afterglow, they fell asleep and missed curfew, and are now sure that their parents (and everyone else) will know what they’ve been doing. (Side note: My great-grandmother once told me, in the presence of my grandmother and mother, “There’s nothing you can do in the dark that you can’t do at two in the afternoon.” Wise woman.)
The lady who “really can’t stay” is also concerned about her reputation, but she and her boyfriend are probably in the city and a year or two older, because they have been comfortable in the boyfriend’s apartment (or dorm room) all night until dawn is approaching. And it’s *her* idea to have “half a drink more” and “another cigarette”. Clearly, despite her epic list of worried relatives, neither she nor her boyfriend is as worried about the prospect of a shotgun wedding.
Thus, we can conclude that the song is *not* about a man forcing a woman against her will; rather, it is about a liberated woman contemplating how much societal double-standard she has to put up with, and an appreciative man reminding her that the weather provides, if not “plausible deniability”, at least a really good excuse. (“Mom, I slept on the sofa! Really!”) (“OK, fine, and where was HE sleeping?”)
(Context matters: in the movie that introduced the song, it is performed two separate times by two different couples, all four characters being mature cosmopolitan independent experienced adults, and for good measure in the second case the woman is enticing the man to stay.)
(When the topic came up a few years back, I discussed it in terms of Cole Porter and jazz era songs and every woman in a movie with Humphrey Bogart, all nudge-nudge-wink-wink and euphemism. The younger crowd didn’t get it, because they have no concept of needing euphemism for this subject. The first time the song came up on the radio this season (before Halloween! WTF!), I had just recently heard the Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” which triggered the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Susie”, banned from radio precisely because the couple had presumably been spending the night together, which one couldn’t even suggest in 1957 but was OK to say out loud ten years later.)
As for the Scottish play, I once fomented chaos by telling a high school english class that the story was like The Sopranos (still in vogue at the time). A made man, thankful and loyal to his boss, yet also desirous of pleasing his hard-to-satisfy lover/wife/partner … some stories seem to be eternally repeated.
When I did Macbeth we were mindful of the fact that in Act 1 he’s just come from fighting the Norwegians (Vikings) and he’d been doing this for his king for sometime. With a big-ass sword, making things red and sticky, watching men die and risking his life for Duncan and Scotland in a hells-cape charnel house of horrors. My lady Mac and I came to the conclusions that A: He’s loyal to the boss, fiercely so. And B: it would be amazing if he didn’t have a little PTSD. They are a couple with a strong bond in Shakespeare’s play just as the original, historical people were by all accounts. Thus, when Macbeth has doubts and troubled thoughts when reconciling his path to the throne because of the disloyalty it shows to his liege lord -his Lady doesn’t have any problems speaking plainly to him because they’ve always been honest with each other. He admires her intelligence and strength, he’s always been ready to take her counsel -and she has always had faith in his ability. he needs it now because with his issues post battle and witches? F*%$! Well he isn’t free of doubt. JMTC.