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.
remember loves: context is everything. and personal opinion matters. If you still find this song to be a problem, that’s fine. But please don’t make it into something it’s not because it’s been stripped of cultural context.
This is actually really interesting. I’ve never known a lot of the background to this song.
I had a dream last night where I was watching a high school comedy on Netflix, and the protagonist’s horrible secret was that he was really a collection of random woodland creatures being directed by a fungal hive-mind. He was terrified that people would discover what he really was, mostly because he thought it would ruin his chances of scoring a date. The film’s narrative did not at any point address why folks didn’t just notice straight away that he was obviously a pile of squirrels roughly fashioned into the shape of a human.
More fuzzily remembered details:
It wasn’t just squirrels – I clearly remember that the protagonist’s “legs” were raccoons, and I seem to recall that there was a badger somewhere in the mix, too
Each woodland creature’s membership in the hive-mind was denoted by a perfectly formed mushroom perched atop its head, Earthbound style
In spite of forming a unitary consciousness, the woodland creatures were also individually capable of thought and speech, and would often criticise each others’ performance
There was also a bear that was a member of the same hive-mind, but didn’t participate in the masquerade on account of being too large; I don’t recall whether the bear actually did anything plot-relevant, or whether it was just there
Why the hell did the fungal hive-mind want a date.
Because it was the protagonist of a high school comedy. Obviously.
Alien: You’re telling me that in times of great distress humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight?!
Human: Yeah, it’s called “hysterical strength” and it usually happens in life-or-death situations, like when someone gets stuck under a car or something and someone lifts the car to get them out. We can’t really test it though, ‘cause it only happens spontaneously.
Alien: Humans have the ability to tap into untold strength and power and you don’t even know how you do it?
Human: Pretty much, yeah. We think it has something to do with temporary analgesia, so we just don’t feel the pain we should when we pick up a 3000-pound car.
Alien: YOUR PAIN RESPONSE JUST SHUTS OFF?
Human: Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline thing? Do you not have that?
Alien: Fuck you and your entire species of tiny juggernauts.
Did this post just use a dialogue format to trick me into learning science
Had to check this out on wikipedia at least and boy was that a ride
SCIENCE!
Just so you guys know. Hysterical strength is basically your body not holding back and going %100 though there is a great danger of you hurting yourself or breaking something since your ignoring pain and going %100. There was a case where a kid deadlifted a car to save a sibling but,cracked 8 of his teeth during it because he was clenching his jaw so hard. So whilst you can lift a car or fight off polar bears. Your probably going to break something. Because most of the time when we are “giving our all” we are only giving a fraction of what we could give and this is because if we truly give our all we can seriously injure ourselves.
This is literally an explanation of Deku and his abilities with One For All.
Humans naturally hold back because our muscles have enough strength to rip themselves apart
can’t wait for the final boss battle of duolingo when you fight the 50 foot owl armed with nothing but your wits, a sword, and your shaky grasp of verb conjugations
straight dude: talks in depth about cars/sports/any other masculine hobby.
me, not heterosexual: i may not be able to understand your hobbies but i support you and am not only glad that you have found something you’re deeply interested in, but also that you’re willing to share it with me. people who make posts that mock “straight guys” for simply being excited about their interests without hurting anyone are just bitter assholes who don’t have a personality.
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