It’s December.<\/p>\n
I have no idea how that happened so fast, but either way you can’t now
enter the local shopping centre without being bombarded by
Now That’s What I Call The Best Xmas… Ever! (Vol.64)<\/strong>.
In honour of the season, I thought, time allowing, that I’d do some
little case studies on some of the songs currently assaulting your ears as
you shop. You may hate all Christmas music, or you may love it –
personally I’ve never minded it much – but pop singles are like
miniature time capsules, so examining their gender politics, and what
happens to these when new artists cover them, is one way to divert your
brain into a state of broad feminist contemplation rather than all-out
anti-consumerist rage in the queue at HMV1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n
Um. I
said<\/em> contemplation. But I can’t guarantee that every vid
embedded in this series I’m proposing won’t have you
reaching for a pretty stiff drink.<\/p>\n
Anyway! Cast your mind, readers, back to the postwar baby boom
– specifically 1953. Elizabeth II ascends the throne here in
the UK! Everest is climbed and DNA discovered! And the volume of
the Kinsey Reports titled Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female<\/strong><\/a>, an attempt
to research women’s sexual appetites and desires, is
published to great controversy and brouhaha. And in December,
this guy called Hugh Hefner launches some magazine or other and
sells over 54,000 copies. The cultural melting pot for the
sexual revolution of the Sixties is neatly bubbling away.<\/p>\n
Christmas novelty smash hits have become a Thing since the War
– White Christmas<\/strong><\/a> came out in 1942. And into
this arena slinks
Santa Baby<\/strong>, recorded by Eartha Kitt<\/strong><\/a> and penned by Joan Javits (a
Republican Senator’s niece). It sashays onto the
airwaves with a
ba-boom-ba-boom<\/em> of barbershoppy backing vocals,
tongue shoved firmly in its cheek.<\/p>\n
These days it’s been heard so often and
covered enough times that people seem to have
forgotten that it’s witty, that it actually
stands out as distinct from more earnest fare like
White Christmas<\/strong>.
White Christmas<\/strong> is about a generation
of people longing for their loved ones during
the War. It dreams of idyllic peacetime
Christmases.
Santa Baby<\/strong>, on the other hand, is a
playful and sly kick in the tender area for
rising peacetime consumerism, as well as a
tale of a trophy wife who always wants more
stuff, from yachts to platinum mines to rings
(not on the phone). In 1954 Eartha re-recorded
a version called
This Year’s Santa Baby<\/strong>, the
lyrics<\/a> of which
reveal that the yacht wasn’t all it
was cracked up to be and our heroine
still<\/em> isn’t satisfied.<\/p>\n
Been an Awful Good Girl<\/h3>\n