Back when the song was written Loesser called it a wolf-mouse song. Being a wolf or being a mouse is not very complimentary. To try to put this in terms of "times have sure changed" instead, is disingenuous. It's always been what it is. We have always known that the man in the song is the wolf and the woman, who is portrayed as younger than she looks, who has to go home to her parents and such, is the "prey" as the link brings up.
What would you do if your young daughter came home, and told you she was treated this way by an older man? And is this topic something that we need to talk about this Christmas?
No one is suggesting that the government step in and ban the song. That would be to ban the movie The Graduate, with its reverse wolf-mouse characters, the older woman manipulating the younger man, with the morality conversation that it also brings up. It's just not for full family gatherings.
In the film "Neptune's Daughter" it is portrayed both ways, with Ricardo Montalban putting the make on Esther Williams, and Betty Garrett putting it on Red Skelton. I was eight when the song first started being heard on the radio and none of the grownups — factory workers all — found it offensive. The only time I knew of an older man coming on to one of the girls I helped raise, she was 12 and babysitting for the guy. She immediately told me about it and I effectively discouraged him. I don't think many people base their lives on comedic songs. And those who disapprove don't need to listen. I find it amazing that only people today are enlightened enough to see what everyone up to now has missed. I am so lucky to be alive in such an age of moral enlightenment.
When Sigourney Weaver and David Johansen (as his lounge-lizard alter ego Buster Poindexter) performed the song on Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s, Weaver's character was coy and smiling in a way that showed she understood that she ultimately had the upper hand in anything that might happen. Offhand, I can't recall ever seeing a performance of the song where the female character seemed powerless and preyed-upon—except when the sexes were reversed and Red Skelton was the one who needed convincing. Anyway, one would have to be a terrible literalist to imagine that a predatory scenario is the primary or only way to interpret such a song.
Back when the song was written Loesser called it a wolf-mouse song. Being a wolf or being a mouse is not very complimentary. To try to put this in terms of "times have sure changed" instead, is disingenuous. It's always been what it is. We have always known that the man in the song is the wolf and the woman, who is portrayed as younger than she looks, who has to go home to her parents and such, is the "prey" as the link brings up.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you do if your young daughter came home, and told you she was treated this way by an older man? And is this topic something that we need to talk about this Christmas?
No one is suggesting that the government step in and ban the song. That would be to ban the movie The Graduate, with its reverse wolf-mouse characters, the older woman manipulating the younger man, with the morality conversation that it also brings up. It's just not for full family gatherings.
In the film "Neptune's Daughter" it is portrayed both ways, with Ricardo Montalban putting the make on Esther Williams, and Betty Garrett putting it on Red Skelton. I was eight when the song first started being heard on the radio and none of the grownups — factory workers all — found it offensive. The only time I knew of an older man coming on to one of the girls I helped raise, she was 12 and babysitting for the guy. She immediately told me about it and I effectively discouraged him. I don't think many people base their lives on comedic songs. And those who disapprove don't need to listen. I find it amazing that only people today are enlightened enough to see what everyone up to now has missed. I am so lucky to be alive in such an age of moral enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteWhen Sigourney Weaver and David Johansen (as his lounge-lizard alter ego Buster Poindexter) performed the song on Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s, Weaver's character was coy and smiling in a way that showed she understood that she ultimately had the upper hand in anything that might happen. Offhand, I can't recall ever seeing a performance of the song where the female character seemed powerless and preyed-upon—except when the sexes were reversed and Red Skelton was the one who needed convincing. Anyway, one would have to be a terrible literalist to imagine that a predatory scenario is the primary or only way to interpret such a song.
ReplyDelete