Listen, a song is a song, and that’s about that: except when
it’s not.
I’m sure you have all heard that my generation has decided that
the song Baby its Cold Outside has too much “Rape Terminology” in it for them
to handle so they have rewritten the song. My response is, “don’t like it? Don’t
listen to it.” For the unpracticed, this is how you do that:
This song has been circulating for quite some time now and I
always find myself fumbling through my presets whenever it comes across my
speakers. It demonstrates inequality between the sexes, and a chauvinistic male
ideal for female behavior. That’s right you guessed it. I HATE this song. I
just can’t bring myself to accept what Dierks Bentley is selling in his song “Different
for girls.” That’s right I have an ideological problem with a country music
smash hit, but I think the “Rapey Baby it’s Cold Outside” argument is not based
in reality. Hypocrisy, I embrace thee.
The thesis of Dierks Bentley’s song is that girls have a
more sensitive reaction to heartbreak, while men can easily get over it all
with a few drinks and a one night stand. Here’s the problem: Women have always
been branded the more “emotional” sex because we are biologically forced to
display it. Therefore men, who have not been blessed with the estrogen dragon, must
be emotionally “stronger” because they rarely physically display emotional responses
to stimuli.
Why do we continue to perpetuate this idea in our culture?
Do not be confused this is NOT a feminist
argument, it is a human one. When we buy this idea we are destroying the
emotional health of both men and women. By presupposing an expected emotional response
we rob people of the gift of grief. Yes, the GIFT.
I once stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, my breath
taken away by its stunning beauty, but after about 60 seconds I wasn’t all that
impressed anymore, “So….How long are we supposed to look at it?” I thought to
myself, there must be some kind of respectful amount of awe-time for a landmark
of this size. “I’m from the Pacific Northwest! I live in the shadow of jagged
ice-capped volcanoes! This is a big ditch, I mean cool?” My emotional response to
that landmark ended as appropriately as it should have, because it was MINE. Several
years ago I lost a dear friend to a brutal car accident and while weeping on my
bedroom floor I remember asking myself “So how long am I supposed to cry? There
must be an appropriate amount of time for such a thing.” It took me until I was
much older and in my third year of college to realize that emotional
experiences just are, and their existence is sufficient for the cause in which
they respond.
Our culture has lobotomized our men from the anguish of their
souls. How long has our community been shouting “it’s ok for men to cry!” and
here we are again singing about the emotional fragility of women and the resilience
of men! *face-keyboard* kjghsdljhv,kj!@#$%
I don’t like this song, so I don’t listen to it. I dearly
love people who adore this song, so I am pretty silent on my exegesis of it “yeah
I don’t really like it, sorry.” People have brains and they can figure things
out on their own. We should trust them with that responsibility. I have just
vocalized my objection to the song “Different for Girls” but I have not
re-written it nor do I promote a rewrite or a boycott, because like emotions, art exists for
the purpose that it does and that is sufficient.
It is funny to me that a generation so vehemently passionate about art, and opposed to censorship, needs to rewrite a piece of art because they don't like it.
It is funny to me that a generation so vehemently passionate about art, and opposed to censorship, needs to rewrite a piece of art because they don't like it.
