'Baby, It's Cold Outside,' Seen As Sexist, Frozen Out By Radio Stations

[laughing dog]

This story is not novel. Radio stations have always made decisions whether to play songs based on content or listener feedback. I think this is really another non-story in even the minor scheme of things.

What I think is more interesting is that I thought radio music play was basically on life-support anyway.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I will ask you again.

And I will ask you again. Who do you think will win such a pointless battle?

If we want to determine if the movie "The Birth of a Nation" can be labeled "racist,"

"Labeled" being the operative term, which of course gives rise to the question, labeled by whom? How about "a little bit bigoty"?

What is the proper context for us to start with in order to figure out the answer?

Of who can label a film? Because that is what you are asking. NOW do you understand the distinction between sophistry and artistic interpretation?

I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze Griffith.

Yes, you are, because, again, you are asking who can label the film "racist," which in turn would go to the political intent of the director of the film (or, depending upon the genesis of the piece, the producer who spearheaded its development). That's what it means to "label" something "racist" as opposed to saying something more benign, like the director used racial stereotypes in a particular manner or to evoke a particular emotional response in the audience, etc, but then, again, you are asking about artistic intent at the very least, not necessarily about artistic interpretation, which is, once again, akin to psychoanalysis.

And now we are way the fuck off topic into unnecessary pedantry as if this were a freshman film course.

You have indicated that the best way to understand if the song "Baby it's cold outside" has sexist or "rapey" undertones or overtones then we must analyze it from the context in which it was written

As well as the lyrics in their order, not cherry-picked or otherwise isolated from the context of the song as well as to factor in--because we have it--the artist's intent as relayed by his daughter.

and you seem to put heavy weight on the information we have on that artist's intent.

To you, perhaps, but to me it is equally to slightly more weighted, because it is rare that we have access to such information.

"The Birth of a Nation" Either follows the same pattern or it doesn't.

No, the wording of the question either follows the same pattern or it doesn't. Hence my repeated distinction about sophistry.

Please indicate whether the "artist's intent" is the "propper" or "better" context in which to evaluate the racism in "The Birth of a Nation."

Word the question properly. Do you think Griffith used stereotypical depictions of African Americans to serve some sort of artistic goal, or merely to advance his own political agenda?

See how easy that is? Now we have a clear distinction being made in regard to any evaluation of racism in the film. Was it a case of personal politics or was Griffith--the son of a Confederate colonel--instead using such tropes as social commentary or, even simpler, to be faithful to the book the movie was based upon, etc?

Either way, however, you were--and continue to be--asking about the artist's intent, which, in turn is asking for psychoanalysis absent any clear indication from the artist, but it just so happens that we do have some indications from Griffith, such as at the 3:50 mark in this "interview" where he plainly states, "The Klan, at that time, was needed, it served a purpose." Still a bit cryptic in that he clearly makes the distinction that they were needed "at that time" (implying that they were not needed in the present day of the interview):



Then on the artistic side, we have contemporary insight such as this from one of the first film reviewers back in 1914 (before Griffith had completed Birth):

Because he knows human nature, his audiences and his art, he can introduce little incidents and touches of a like character which put vital interest and "grip" into the most ordinary happenings. That is why I put up "The Massacre" as an argument in defense of the genius of David Griffith.
...
He has confidence in himself and is sure of his points as he makes them, but he never attempts to put on a picture until he is sure of what he intends to do. He is a voracious reader and studies all the necessary details regarding the period which he is about to portray and is a stickler for the correctness of these details.

Note how this sentiment (from 1914) is echoed in this piece published in Slate back in 2003 (bolded emphasis mine):

But was Griffith really a die-hard racist? There’s no evidence from his biography that he cared very strongly about racial politics at all. His father fought for the Confederacy and regaled the young Griffith with war stories, but, as Richard Schickel points out, “racism was no more a dominant factor in conditioning his sensibility than the hard times he and his family endured.” The director never publicly lobbied for segregation or black disenfranchisement; he defended the Klan only as a historical relic. Bret Wood, who produced much of the Griffith set for Kino, says the director chose stories not for their political content but for their potential to thrill audiences. In fact, just four years before Birth, he made a short called The Rose of Kentucky, in which evil Klansmen attack a white plantation owner who refuses to join their ranks. (Sadly, few quality prints exist, and it’s not included in the Kino collection.) The film seems to directly contradict the heroic images of the Klan he presented in Birth—and, if Griffith actually believed Birth’s ethos, his very political sensibility. But it made for a great story, so he made it anyway.

Watching the Kino discs, you get the sense that Griffith was less a racist than a careless thinker who fell hard for others’ ideas. The Clansman upon which Griffith based much of The Birth of a Nation, is an anti-black screed disguised as a historical novel. Ex-Confederate soldiers offered the director advice. According to one of the Kino documentaries, some of the most offensive images in Birth—like the ludicrous blacks in South Carolina’s Reconstruction Congress—were cut-and-pasted straight from racist political cartoons of the period. And yet Griffith thought his copious research and reliance on historical documents was turning the film toward a definitive historical account—and away from the one-sided versions of Reconstruction that had been penned by Northern historians.
...
Shocked at the uproar that Birth caused among liberal intellectuals and the NAACP, Griffith did something no unreconstructed bigot would do. He made Broken Blossoms (1919), about a tender romance between a white woman and a Chinese man. (Though here Griffith indulged in some well-trod stereotypes, too; his heroic “Yellow Man” is a shopkeeper, opium-smoker, etc.) Gone was the paranoia of Birth—with its scheming mulattoes and rants against interracial marriage. In was a new kind of racial sensibility—not up to par with modern standards but different than anything he had shown before.

What all this suggests is that Griffith had no well-formed inner politics and that whatever ideology he put on the screen was malleable to the social whim of the moment (or whatever books he was reading). If this idea seems strange, it’s because the American directors making political films these days—Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Tim Robbins, Warren Beatty—have fairly obvious political agendas of their own. To praise or criticize the ideas in their films is to praise or criticize their own ideas. That won’t work with Griffith. He was a sophisticated filmmaker, but he wasn’t a sophisticated thinker.

So, was his interest political or merely artistic, even commercial in that sense? Probably a bit of both, but no matter what, we're engaging primarily in psychoanalysis--in an artist's intent--and not necessarily in artistic interpretation.

Now, if you are instead asking whether or not certain scenes in the film in and of themselves are racist in specific regard to just the content of the scenes--iow, deliberately taking them out of the context of either Griffith's political intent and/or artistic expression--such that a modern day audience would consider them "a little bit bigoty" yes, they are, no question, because in this regard--taking them out of one context and putting them in another context--does not change the inherent racism of the content.

Iow, context is not required to determine if the content of a particular scene is racist. There is no other "label" that could be applied to a scene, for example, in which a white Southern "belle" prefers suicide over the prospect of marriage (or rape) to a black man for no other reason than he is black.

So, the question of context in the film must once again turn to whether or not such a scene was meant by the filmmaker as propaganda or artistic commentary and to answer that question one must eschew ignorance and do the research.

Which places us exactly back at sophistry, not artistic interpretation.

And in regard to whether or not anything in the above is comparable to taking a line of the song--such as, "Say, what's in this drink"--and applying the same analysis, is there anything inherently "a little bit rapey" about that line? No, there is not.

Be very careful on this point. Is there anything inherently "rapey" about asking someone--male or female--what's in this drink? No, there is not (and certainly not in a like manner as with the inherent racism in isolated scenes in Birth). It can be a purely benign question and even if the answer is, "Yeah, I dosed it with LSD" it could still be a welcome and purely benign condition, depending upon the disposition of the person asking.

For the "rapey" context to be invoked in regard to the song line, one must leave the realm of inherency and instead shift to modern day experiences and superimpose them onto the line. So you are taking something out of its context and then superimposing a foreign context upon it. Iow, you are twice removing its original context in order to force something upon it that does not exist in the original context NOR inherently in the line.

Is that in any way comparable to what I've done with Birth? No. Is that exactly what I did with my point about Nazi Germany? Yes.

So now I believe I have exhaustively answered your unnecessarily pedantic question, yes?

No, I'm not arguing in the context of Nazi Germany. Yes, I understand the difference between sophistry and artistic interpretation.

Great. Then we're finally on the same page.

 

[Politesse]

This story is not novel. Radio stations have always made decisions whether to play songs based on content or listener feedback. I think this is really another non-story in even the minor scheme of things.

What I think is more interesting is that I thought radio music play was basically on life-support anyway.

This is all just a ploy by rival christmas stations to drum up business.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

 

[RavenSky]

And #MeToo I think.

Both of these assumptions are a load of baloney. Discussion about this song and others being a little bit rapey pre-date both #MeToo and Bill Cosby being outed as a rapist.

Sure, but I do nonetheless think that things such as #MeToo, along with other factors, is likely part of what led to the negative reaction being arguably a bit too strong this time around. I'm ok in the end, on balance, with agreeing that this song/scene is a little bit rapey, in the sense that zorq is using the phrase, or perhaps problematic is a better word, but I do still think the issue has been a bit overblown, especially given that this particular song/scene is actually much more nuanced than appears at first impression. Hence, I think, the wide and varied disagreement, in which the idea that the song/scene is female-empowering and progressive seem to be as valid as the idea that it is harmfully sexist.

"overblown" where?

 

[RavenSky]

Aaaaaand back on the ignore list....

Shooting the messenger? Bad form.

Look who is yapping about "bad form". Looking in the mirror at yourself?

 

[JohnG]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

When you put it that way, I guess it's OK, maybe we could...HEY! WHAT'S IN MY DRINK?

 

[RavenSky]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

While fully acknowledging that this is nothing more than a song that was meant to be cute for the time it was written in...

I will say to you exactly what I said to my stepsons when the William Kennedy rape case was happening:

If the woman says "no", even if you think she is just playing "hard to get", you walk away.

If she was playing games - shame on her and you don't want to be with a woman who would play those sorts of dishonest games.

If she was serious, you just saved yourself from a justified sexual assault / attempted rape / rape charge.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Rhea]

“The times” during which women were punished socially for saying “yes,” (you slut!) and are forced to be very careful how they say “no,” (you bitch!) are still very very much today’s times. The problems with that song go beyond what its (male) composer meant by it. It represents the social Catch 22 into which women then and now are forced.

I agree with Raven. If you treat “no” as “no,” that’s your best course of action. Ironically, the men who are always complaining about not getting the lay they feel they are entitled to would do best by breaking the above Catch 22.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

It depends. Did he slip her a quaalude in her drink half way through the process?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

While fully acknowledging that this is nothing more than a song that was meant to be cute for the time it was written in...

I will say to you exactly what I said to my stepsons when the William Kennedy rape case was happening:

If the woman says "no", even if you think she is just playing "hard to get", you walk away.

If she was playing games - shame on her and you don't want to be with a woman who would play those sorts of dishonest games.

If she was serious, you just saved yourself from a justified sexual assault / attempted rape / rape charge.

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

It depends. Did he slip her a quaalude in her drink half way through the process?

In my question I thought I made it clear that there was no force, threat of force, coercion, drugs, etc. All he used was persuasion. Eventually she said "yes".

I thought I made myself clear. First she said no, he persuaded her, then she said yes.

Is the act of persuading someone to change their mind "rapey". Persuasion, not threats.

 

[zorq]

And I will ask you again. Who do you think will win such a pointless battle?

You insisted that you didn't understand the question so I asked it again in a different way to make my question more clear. Don't get upset that I am trying to communicate with you. Oh, and this isn't a "battle" at all. At least, not from my perspective.

"Labeled" being the operative term, which of course gives rise to the question, labeled by whom? How about "a little bit bigoty"?

Whom? I was thinking... you, me and anyone else with the ability to form an opinion. This isn't a trick question.

What is the proper context for us to start with in order to figure out the answer?

Of who can label a film? Because that is what you are asking. NOW do you understand the distinction between sophistry and artistic interpretation?

NO. I did not ask who can label a film. I asked what the "proper" context was for a human, any human living today or in the future is to investigate the racism of this film.

I'm not asking you to psychoanalyze Griffith.

Yes, you are, because, again, you are asking who can label the film "racist," which in turn would go to the political intent of the director of the film (or, depending upon the genesis of the piece, the producer who spearheaded its development). That's what it means to "label" something "racist" as opposed to saying something more benign,

No. We don't need to know the "political intent" of an artist to form an opinion on the art and study it's implications, political or otherwise. Things can have adjectives applied to them because of the creators intent, despite the creator's intent or without the intent of the creator entirely (unintentionally).

like the director used racial stereotypes in a particular manner or to evoke a particular emotional response in the audience, etc, but then, again, you are asking about artistic intent at the very least, not necessarily about artistic interpretation, which is, once again, akin to psychoanalysis.

And now we are way the fuck off topic into unnecessary pedantry as if this were a freshman film course.

That's not MY fault. My question was narrow. You seem intent on steering it out to left field despite my insistence that it has no business going there.

You have indicated that the best way to understand if the song "Baby it's cold outside" has sexist or "rapey" undertones or overtones is to analyze it from the context in which it was written

As well as the lyrics in their order, not cherry-picked or otherwise isolated from the context of the song as well as to factor in--because we have it--the artist's intent as relayed by his daughter.

and you seem to put heavy weight on the information we have on that artist's intent.

To you, perhaps, but to me it is equally to slightly more weighted,

Yeah I don't know how I possibly got that impression...
Oh, yeah. you said...

No, actually, you cannot. There is only ONE correct context, which is the one established by the artist,....
But even if you do not accept--for some reason--that it is the artist who has the exclusive right to establish the context of their own work...

But anyway...

... because it is rare that we have access to such information.

Which only goes to show how unnecessary it is.

"The Birth of a Nation" Either follows the same pattern or it doesn't.

No, the wording of the question either follows the same pattern or it doesn't. Hence my repeated distinction about sophistry.

You haven't established any deviation in the pattern of the question. Just because you keep changing my question to suit your whims of what you imagine you think I'm asking doesn't mean that my actual question written in plain English had deviated from the pattern of the question. Talk about sophistry.

Please indicate whether the "artist's intent" is the "propper" or "better" context in which to evaluate the racism in "The Birth of a Nation."

Word the question properly. Do you think Griffith used stereotypical depictions of African Americans to serve some sort of artistic goal, or merely to advance his own political agenda?

THAT IS NOT MY QUESTION! Damn! Why are you so evasive? I don't care if YOU think Griffith "used stereotypical depictions of African Americans" for any reason. I want to know if the seemingly universal standard you insist upon for evaluating art applies universally. You know in this very thread you accused another poster of shifting the context to suit their argument. WTF?

See how easy that is?

I see how much you are struggling to avoid honestly examining your universal standard.

Now we have a clear distinction being made in regard to any evaluation of racism in the film. Was it a case of personal politics or was Griffith--the son of a Confederate colonel--instead using such tropes as social commentary or, even simpler, to be faithful to the book the movie was based upon, etc?

These are completely unrelated to my question.

Either way, however, you were--and continue to be--asking about the artist's intent,

Only with respect to the proper context in which to evaluate the art. I am NOT intentionally asking you to evaluate the art.

which, in turn is asking for psychoanalysis absent any clear indication from the artist, but it just so happens that we do have some indications from Griffith, such as at the 3:50 mark in this "interview" where he plainly states, "The Klan, at that time, was needed, it served a purpose." Still a bit cryptic in that he clearly makes the distinction that they were needed "at that time" (implying that they were not needed in the present day of the interview):

...

So, was his interest political or merely artistic, even commercial in that sense? Probably a bit of both, but no matter what, we're engaging primarily in psychoanalysis--in an artist's intent--and not necessarily in artistic interpretation.

Now, if you are instead asking whether or not certain scenes in the film in and of themselves are racist in specific regard to just the content of the scenes--iow, deliberately taking them out of the context of either Griffith's political intent and/or artistic expression--such that a modern day audience would consider them "a little bit bigoty" yes, they are, no question, because in this regard--taking them out of one context and putting them in another context--does not change the inherent racism of the content.

Iow, context is not required to determine if the content of a particular scene is racist. There is no other "label" that could be applied to a scene, for example, in which a white Southern "belle" prefers suicide over the prospect of marriage (or rape) to a black man for no other reason than he is black.

So the only way a work of art can defy the will of it's creator is if the creator flubs his creation so badly that it becomes inherently contrary to his will? Or are you conceding here that the context of the creator's intent is unnecessary for labeling a piece of art?

Also, I see no reason why you are insisting that the context of specific scenes can be evaluated as "racist" without considering the artist's intent, but you don't offer the whole movie the same luxury.

So, the question of context in the film must once again turn to whether or not such a scene was meant by the filmmaker as propaganda or artistic commentary and to answer that question one must eschew ignorance and do the research.

Which places us exactly back at sophistry, not artistic interpretation.

And in regard to whether or not anything in the above is comparable to taking a line of the song--such as, "Say, what's in this drink"--and applying the same analysis, is there anything inherently "a little bit rapey" about that line? No, there is not.

Be very careful on this point. Is there anything inherently "rapey" about asking someone--male or female--what's in this drink? No, there is not (and certainly not in a like manner as with the inherent racism in isolated scenes in Birth). It can be a purely benign question and even if the answer is, "Yeah, I dosed it with LSD" it could still be a welcome and purely benign condition, depending upon the disposition of the person asking.

I totally agree with this.

For the "rapey" context to be invoked in regard to the song line, one must leave the realm of inherency and instead shift to modern day experiences and superimpose them onto the line. So you are taking something out of its context and then superimposing a foreign context upon it. Iow, you are twice removing its original context in order to force something upon it that does not exist in the original context NOR inherently in the line.

I wouldn't characterize it as twice removed from its original context. The inherent meaning of a sentence is actually almost never it's original context. Sentences and art that are meant for other people to appreciate are nearly always created in a specific context already. I'm saying we almost never start from the "realm of inherency" to begin with so your first removal from that realm almost never really happens. But even if we do transition from the "realm of inherency" to a realm with a context, that doesn't mean anything is necessarily subtracted from the inherent meaning. More meaning is often added and nothing from the inherent realm is necessarily lost. The change isn't destructive and needn't be characterized as a "removal." And likewise, regarding your second "removal," if the new context we are superimposing over the original context encompasses understanding of the original context and merely ADDS more information then nothing is really lost in the transition. The original meaning of the sentence isn't removed, it is grown and transformed.

But this is mostly quibbling over a metaphor.

Is that in any way comparable to what I've done with Birth? No. Is that exactly what I did with my point about Nazi Germany? Yes.

So now I believe I have exhaustively answered your unnecessarily pedantic question, yes?

It didn't need to be pedantic, you know.

 

[TSwizzle]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

Nah. Women quite often put up some token resistance before they put out. Particularly the first time, they don’t want to appear “easy”.

Then you get the “Gosh, I don’t normally put out when I hardly know the guy.” Or “I’m not really like that”.

All part of the mating ritual.

 

[zorq]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

I don't think this (over?)simplification of the song is "rapey" at all. But the devil is in the details. Strip away too much context and content from something and you are talking about something completely different.

 

[JohnG]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

Nah. Women quite often put up some token resistance before they put out. Particularly the first time, they don’t want to appear “easy”.

Then you get the “Gosh, I don’t normally put out when I hardly know the guy.” Or “I’m not really like that”.

All part of the mating ritual.

I think that was never a good strategy. Myself, I was the guy who had long term relationships, but my friends who played the numbers game, that is, approach many girls, be direct, respectful, honest, would usually find someone to go home with. The dudes who wouldn't take no for an answer from one girl usually got told to take a hike at some point, and then complained later that "all the chicks were gay".

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You insisted that you didn't understand the question

Not exactly:

What is the "proper, better, context" for understanding The Birth of a Nation?

"Understanding" what aspect of the film? Are you asking me if Griffith used stereotypical depictions of African Americans because he personally was a racist and wanted to infuse his film with his politics as, once again, that would be asking me to psychoanalyze Griffith, not necessarily offer my artistic interpretation of the film's imagery or the like?

Do you now understand the distinction?

I will ask you again.

Your question was vague and needed clarification.

Whom? I was thinking... you, me and anyone else with the ability to form an opinion. This isn't a trick question.

Except that it is, because, once again, it becomes a question of sophistry and context. If the person viewing the film were a Grand Dragon of the KKK, for example, how would he label it and what would his arguments/approach be?

I did not ask who can label a film.

You did, you just did not realize that this was what you were asking. It may not have been your intention, but, again, the way you worded the question, that's what you were asking.

I asked what the "proper" context was for a human, any human living today or in the future is to investigate the racism of this film.

And that phrase--"investigate the racism of this film"--once again, is vague and needs clarification in order for us to determine "proper context." Was the racism the director's/author's/producer's political stance (i.e., was the film meant to be propaganda)? Was the racism meant as social commentary (i.e., was it ironic, and therefore being used by the director to indict any in the audience who could not see a reflection of themselves in the grotesques depicted)? Is it a combination of politics and commercialism; i.e., playing on cultural stereotypes of the day in order to appeal to the racists in the audience as a marketing gimmick (i.e., give the idiots what they want and we'll laugh all the way to the bank)?

All of which requires a form of psychoanalysis of the director (or author or producer) in order to determine the proper context to "investigate the racism of this film."

The irony of all of this--your inability to establish even the proper context of your own question--should not be lost on you.

The song, however has no similar vagaries. We know from the lyrics it is not about rape. We know from the artist's daughter it is not about rape. We know from contemporary sources that "Say, what's in this drink" was an ironic joke, not a serious question or suspicion of being drugged. We also know that the line itself is not inherently about rape the way a depiction of a white woman choosing suicide over marriage to a black man just because he is black is inherently racist (iow, no context needed in regard to the isolated content). Etc.

No. We don't need to know the "political intent" of an artist to form an opinion on the art and study it's implications, political or otherwise

This isn't about forming "an" opinion in a general, oh gee what the hell kind of way; it's about forming the intellectually honest or academically "true" opinion (assessment/analysis) to the intellectual best of our abilities and tools at our disposal, which is a far more difficult thing to do and why sophistry and context are key.

Any idiot can form an opinion about any fucking thing they want, which is, once again, why the clarity of the question is so important. That's what "investigate" entails after all.

If all you are doing is using the racist scenes in Birth as a springboard to discuss something else--such as "racists tropes in American cinema" or the like--then that's a different matter. But you are saying you want to "investigate the racism of this film" (and not merely "in" this film, btw, something else we need to address), which is a VERY broad topic and would necessarily require an analysis of artistic intent (and which artist's intent, no less) as well as film theory and a comparison of historical and contemporary sociology (including analysis of southern and northern audiences from both periods); etc., etc., etc.

Now apply the same thing to the line, "Say, what's in this drink" in an attempt to "investigate the condoning of rape of this song." The song does not condone rape and the line--in and of itself--is benign in both historical and contemporary contexts. End of investigation.

Things can have

Yeah, again, we're veering way off into unnecessary pedantry again.

That's not MY fault.

It most certainly is.

My question was narrow.

It demonstrably was not.

You seem intent on steering it out to left field despite my insistence that it has no business going there.

Horseshit. As has been abundantly demonstrated twice now, it was vague and sent us off on its own business going there.

To you, perhaps, but to me it is equally to slightly more weighted,

Yeah I don't know how I possibly got that impression...

No, actually, you cannot. There is only ONE correct context, which is the one established by the artist

Did you note the qualifier? Only one correct context, which is the one established by the artist and (again) "correct" in the intellectually rigorous manner noted previously. That hasn't changed. If you are the artist and you are asked in what context should someone understand your art, your response is therefore the only correct one. How could it not be?

Again, Nazi Germany.

THAT IS NOT MY QUESTION! Damn! Why are you so evasive?

Irony. Big fan. I am the one directly addressing everything you wrote--trying to clarify YOUR vagaries--not be evasive in the slightest.

Case in point:

I want to know if the seemingly universal standard you insist upon for evaluating art applies universally.

"Evaluating art"? You couldn't be more vague if you tried. And I wasn't "evaluating art" in regard to the song, I was determining whether or not the song condones rape or is otherwise depicting a rape. That's not "evaluating art." That's evaluating accusations.

And the "universal standard" I am applying is "sophistry and proper context." So, yes, I would say that in either instance (evaluating art or evaluating accusations) that "sophistry and proper context" should be applied and can be applied "universally."

I see how much you are struggling to avoid honestly examining your universal standard.

More horseshit. The whole point of my previous thread (and this one) and indeed every fucking thing I've posted itt is about "honestly examining" my "universal standard."

Sophistry and proper context. Does a person's arguments hold water and what is the proper context to guide in determining that?

Either way, however, you were--and continue to be--asking about the artist's intent,

Only with respect to the proper context in which to evaluate the art.

Hey, you finally got it. But, again, "evaluate the art" as it stands alone is hopelessly vague.

Iow, context is not required to determine if the content of a particular scene is racist. There is no other "label" that could be applied to a scene, for example, in which a white Southern "belle" prefers suicide over the prospect of marriage (or rape) to a black man for no other reason than he is black.

So the only way a work of art can defy the will of it's creator is if the creator flubs his creation so badly that it becomes inherently contrary to his will?

What?

Or are you conceding here that the context of the creator's intent is unnecessary for labeling a piece of art?

Jesus fucking christ. Your original question was "investigate the racism of this film." Do you seriously not understand--after my own now completely necessary unnecessarily pedantic deep dive into your quagmire--the distinction between investigating the racism "of" this film or investigating the racism "in" this film?

Iow, is Birth propaganda or artistic expression? Leni Riefenstahl's films are certainly artistic, but they are NOT artistic expressions, they are propaganda. There is a political intent--a political agenda--to them, not an artistic one (except as it serves the political one). So the distinction between investigating the political agenda "of" her films as opposed to investigating the political agenda "in" her films is entirely two different areas of exploration.

What do I mean? Throw up on the whiteboard next to her films Chaplain's brilliant The Great Dictator. He depicts the exact same political agenda "in" his film that Riefenstahl does, but the political agenda "of" his film is diametrically opposed to Riefenstahl's.

Get it now? Exactly how you word your questions make significant differences. It's not a matter of my misunderstanding anything; it's a matter of you being too vague in your choice of words and phrases.

Also, I see no reason why you are insisting that the context of specific scenes can be evaluated as "racist"

NO. The racism is inherent in the imagery. It is deliberately racist imagery, so in regard to isolating the imagery (removing it from the context of the film) it is inherently racist no matter what (same with Riefenstahl's and Chaplain's imagery).

So the context becomes a question of artist's intent (again, Riefenstahl v. Chaplain).

But we do not have the same condition in the song, which was the point. There is nothing inherently "rapey" about the line "Say, what's in this drink." Iow, if you isolate that line (taking it out of the context of the song) and ask, "is this rape?" The answer is no. Take any particular scene from Birth and isolate it and ask, "is this racist?" The answer is yes. In fact, it is racist in or out of the movie. Likewise not so with the song.

So, the question of context in the film must once again turn to whether or not such a scene was meant by the filmmaker as propaganda or artistic commentary and to answer that question one must eschew ignorance and do the research.

Which places us exactly back at sophistry, not artistic interpretation.

And in regard to whether or not anything in the above is comparable to taking a line of the song--such as, "Say, what's in this drink"--and applying the same analysis, is there anything inherently "a little bit rapey" about that line? No, there is not.

Be very careful on this point. Is there anything inherently "rapey" about asking someone--male or female--what's in this drink? No, there is not (and certainly not in a like manner as with the inherent racism in isolated scenes in Birth). It can be a purely benign question and even if the answer is, "Yeah, I dosed it with LSD" it could still be a welcome and purely benign condition, depending upon the disposition of the person asking.

I totally agree with this.

Then why is this continuing? That's pretty much the whole shooting match right there.

But this is mostly quibbling over a metaphor.

Aka, being unnecessarily pedantic.

It didn't need to be pedantic, you know.

And yet...

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

It depends. Did he slip her a quaalude in her drink half way through the process?

In my question I thought I made it clear that there was no force, threat of force, coercion, drugs, etc. All he used was persuasion. Eventually she said "yes".

I thought I made myself clear. First she said no, he persuaded her, then she said yes.

Is the act of persuading someone to change their mind "rapey". Persuasion, not threats.

Your description of the song is incorrect as has been documented.

She asks what he put in the drink halfway through the song.

Please refer to the lyrics next time.

 

[dismal]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

It depends. Did he slip her a quaalude in her drink half way through the process?

It seems unlikely as quaaludes hadn't been invented yet.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I must ask this of those who think the song is rapey.

He propositions her, she says no.
He then decides to persuade her to change her mind.
Finally she changes her mind and gives consent.

Is that rapey?

It depends. Did he slip her a quaalude in her drink half way through the process?

It seems unlikely as quaaludes hadn't been invented yet.

Not to mention that in order to have it refer to that, you'd need to take that single line in isolation from the entire context of the lyrics which surround it, which is a really stupid way of analyzing something.