--- title: Baby, It's Cold Outside Composer's Daughter Defends Song description: The daughter of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" composer Frank Loesser said her father would be "furious" about the song's current controversy. canonical: https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-11T16:40:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:17:13.079Z og:title: 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' Composer's Daughter Defends Song og:description: "It would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time" og:url: https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7d901a78565e545/698941447cdbac9bffd5ea86/baby-its-cold-outside-defended-by-composers-daughter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Sheet music on piano, Christmas tree in background og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' Composer's Daughter Defends Song twitter:description: "It would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7d901a78565e545/698941447cdbac9bffd5ea86/baby-its-cold-outside-defended-by-composers-daughter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' Composer's Daughter Defends Song Amid Controversy > Sponsored content. 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There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=0b2ad6e3-253b-4473-87c1-7e2a0ef85f66&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The #MeToo Movement: One Year Later [Watch (HLS stream): The #MeToo Movement: One Year Later](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qOAYRssp.m3u8) (4:41)  _Published 2018-10-10. #MeToo transformed into a global movement, so what's changed over the course of a year._  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 11, 2018 4:40 PM UTC #MeToo transformed into a global movement, so what's changed over the course of a year.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Dec 11, 2018 4:40 PM UTC The daughter of Broadway composer Frank Loesser, who wrote the polarizing holiday classic, [“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”](http://time.com/4587448/baby-its-cold-outside-remix/) is saying that her father would be “furious” at the song being banned at multiple radio stations this holiday season. In recent years, the 1944 holiday song has been critiqued for its overtones (among other questionable lines, “say, what’s in this drink” seems to suggest non-consensual overtures); in response, there have been [modern remixes written that emphasize consent](http://time.com/3635706/feminist-baby-its-cold-outside/) and most recently, radio stations in Cleveland, Colorado, California, and Toronto have [banned the song](https://www.nme.com/news/music/more-us-radio-stations-are-banning-baby-its-cold-outside-2417681) after listener complaints. In an interview with [_NBC News_](https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/music/daughter-baby-it-s-cold-outside-writer-frank-loesser-blames-n944901), Susan Loesser, the 74-year-old daughter of the famed composer, defended the song, calling for people to think about it in context of the time. “I think my father would be furious at that,” Loesser said. “People used to say ‘what’s in this drink’ as a joke. You know, ‘this drink is going straight to my head so what’s in this drink?’ Back then it didn’t mean you drugged me.” She continued, recognizing why people take issue with the lyrics. “Absolutely I get it. But I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time. It was written in 1944,” Loesser said. Loesser went on to address how the song’s lyrics could be interpreted in the #MeToo era. “Bill Cosby ruined it for everybody,” she said. “Way before #Me Too, I would hear from time to time people call it a date rape song. I would get annoyed because it’s a song my father wrote for him and my mother to sing at parties. But ever since Cosby was accused of drugging women, I hear the date rape thing all the time.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] A year ago, the New York Times and the The New Yorker published a exposes that brought down Harvey Weinstein and sparked a global conversation around sexual harassment in the work place. The metoo movement was started by Tarana Burke more than a decade ago but became last year's viral rallying cry for survivors to share their stories of sexual assault, and harassment. Prompting hundreds of alleged abusers to lose positions Positions of power. Men at the pinnacle of their industries like Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer and Les Moonves were held to account. According to Bloomberg, there have been at least 425 prominent individuals since October of 2017 That have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct, that behavior that spans rape to lewd conduct. # MeToo started out as a hashtag for survivors, primarily women, to tell their stories of assault and harassment. And fairly quickly turned into actionable information. It has led to some very high profile figures not only falling from grace, but in some cases coming under criminal investigation and having a day in court. And variations of the campaign has made headway in countries across Europe Africa, the Middle East, and South America. According to Meltwater, a social media monitoring firm, the MeToo hashtag has appeared in almost fourteen million public tweets. After # METOOwent viral in the US, it spread across the world. It became this thing where we realized it wasn't just an America problem, it wasn't just a woman problem, it was an everywhere problem. While headlines suggest a more supportive society for women who speak up, the reality is much more complicated. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Commitee for Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination, who she says assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980's, an allegation he denies, serves as a stark example. The Senate voted 50 to 48 to send Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, but not before Ford was asked to relive her experience on a national scale, and was mocked by the president of the United States. The movements faced backlash and unintended consequences that in some ways have made it harder for women to advance in their career. Some powerful men that lost their jobs over misconduct allegations have quietly started to reemerge. In a national poll of 1, 000 women conducted by Time with SSRS, 60 % of the women felt the environment for women in their workplace hasn't changed since # MeToo. 51 % went on to say they're not any more likely to report sexual harassment than before the hashtag went viral. We circled back with the number of women that we interviewed at the beginning of the Me Too movement. And many of them are still working next to their harassers and assailants. Many of them are tied up in years long lawsuits. And I think they're rather upset that this is still ongoing fully. And they are spending a lot of money on those lawsuits. And I think that they're rather Upset that this is still ongoing. So what's changed in the past year? The movement has started a conversation between men and women about the inequality. It started a conversation that a lot of people were not having for a very long time. But as the dust settles, questions remain how systematic inequality is addressed. Some corporations have changed their contacts. Simon and Schuster has added a morality clause to their deals. While other states have revisited their loss, states like Vermont and Delaware have expanded their sexual harassment protections. Laws have passed in California and New York to make it easier to report abuse, and require company harassment training. But Congress has yet to pass any laws related to workplace sexual harassment. Companies are left to devise their own individual HR policies for better or worse. In order for national change to happen, Then the government needs to say this standard is unacceptable and we need to force companies to make change in order for women to be able to feel safe in the workplace. No one movement can address generations of systematic abuses but the next year still offers hope for the year to come. [ MUSIC ] The second year of the Me Too movement hopefully adds more nuance to the conversations. I think that we have toppled some of the worst offenders. I don't think that we have really looked and that's going to require men examining how even passively they've contributed to a toxic culture. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/"},"headline":"'Baby, It's Cold Outside' Composer's Daughter Defends Song Amid Controversy","datePublished":"2018-12-11T16:40:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-13T08:17:13.079Z","description":"\"I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time\"","url":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7d901a78565e545/698941447cdbac9bffd5ea86/baby-its-cold-outside-defended-by-composers-daughter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc7d901a78565e545/698941447cdbac9bffd5ea86/baby-its-cold-outside-defended-by-composers-daughter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Sheet music on piano, Christmas tree in background","caption":"Sheet music on piano, Christmas tree in background","creditText":"Adam C Bartlett—Getty Images/Image Source","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/","name":"'Baby, It's Cold Outside' Composer's Daughter Defends Song Amid Controversy"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The #MeToo Movement: One Year Later","description":"#MeToo transformed into a global movement, so what's changed over the course of a year.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/qOAYRssp/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2018-10-10T21:12:53.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/qOAYRssp.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/","duration":"PT4M41S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5476720/baby-its-cold-outside-daughter/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```