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A Reply to Baby It's Cold Outside and Other Songs

 I received an interesting and thoughtful reply to my post on songs. It is from an intelligent, educated, well-read person with liberal sociopolitical values. It reads, in part-

"RE "WAP":  I personally think it's unfunny and disgusting.  But is offensive humor new?  Lenny Bruce?  George Carlin?  Cheech and Chong's drug humor?  1920's vaudeville?

My grandmother told of her father throwing her out of the house for 3 days when she got a "flapper" bobbed haircut in the 1920's.  It still made her angry, 70 years later.  What's the point of the outrage over the perception of vulgarity?

I can't buy the argument that the existence, even the broad popularity, of "culture" that is intended to be offensive-and-funny represents in any way the breakdown of society.  I'll go watch PBS instead; that's my choice."

But that was and is my very point. We can't simply 'watch PBS'. We can't change the channel on this. The writer is correct that there has always been edgy, even outrageous and illegal performances and humor. Brothels, strip shows, vaudeville- these ever-popular releases have been illegal at many times and places in America but were and are popular. The comedians cited were considered outrageous in their day.

But WAP ISN'T considered outrageous. It was a huge, popular hit. It is worse than, but in the same sleeve, as many other rap and hip/hop songs, like Anaconda. The very fact that the New York Times and many other serious reviewers extolled the song is what makes this different. That serious reviewers can consider as feminist empowerment a couple of ill-dressed women singing 'whores in the house' and 'wet-ass pussy' is different. Very different.

The motto of my university is leges sine moribus vanae. Laws without morals are pointless. I'm not suggesting such work be made illegal. That's unconstitutional anyway. What I assert is that anyone would write this song, anyone would record and produce it, offer it for sale, or that millions would buy it, is evidence of our social decay. 

Outre comics and 'adult entertainment' have been part of our nation since its founding. But they were outre, not mainstream popular culture. In the name of freedom we have made a slide from a society that values the public sphere and its order and decorum into one with respect for nothing but personal expression in the name of freedom. If you're uncomfortable just walk the other way, change the channel, disengage from discussion.

But there is nowhere else to go. We have nothing but us and what we create. We once enjoyed safe public parks, clean streets (relatively), public entertainment that was not obscene, police that enforced loitering and vagrancy laws such that citizens were not accosted. Now, in the name of freedom, vagrants and drug addicts sleep in parks, defecate in the street, set up tent cities. Riots are called peaceful protests, but are such that businesses are leaving downtown centers. 20% have decamped from Portland. Go to Louisville, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and others to see this. 

And you can't pass this off as some kind of selective view. This is happening, has happened. 

We can cheer the sound of women shouting about their wet pussies, dance to it with the whores in feces-filled streets, celebrate them as single mothers to future criminals while we get robbed and mugged by their current progeny and under-manned police do nothing for fear of indictment and illegal aliens pour across our border to the tune of 3 million this year alone, our nation awash in not just in disorder but debt.

And remember, we not only made this but have people who attempt to defend it by intellectual sophistry- all you have to do is change the channel.....

Ted


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