Chloe Bailey’s Eartha Kitt moment

The internet is yet again divided over Chloe Bailey. This time, it’s over how much fun she’s having under the mistletoe. Chloe released a new song just in time for the holidays – but a lot of people online are saying it’s a bit too sexy for Christmas. The song, “Mrs. Claus Don’t Have to Know” features lyrics that read:

Hurry cause we don't have many hours, we gon' wake the neighbors up, I think we little loud, sit up on your lap, cause I love a man with power, oh, my cookie's out for you, time to devour.

Based on the lyrics alone, it’s understandable that there’s been so much debate. I mean, she’s managed to turn the age-old Christmas phrase ‘naughty or nice’ into something entirely different than it was intended to mean and she even includes a line where she says she’s going to ‘ride all night’.

The reaction on her YouTube channel, for the most part, was pleasant, with people lauding the background vocals, the ‘darker, edgier sound’ and asking for a longer, extended version, perhaps even an entire project. But scattered throughout were remarks about this song not needing to be a Christmas song, with others chiming in on Instagram saying:

‘Everything doesn’t have to be about sex all the time’.

But Chloe is not the first, nor will she be the last, to make a sexy Christmas song. She’s just the first one to take it to this level, at least recently. For ages, people have turned the romance of Christmas into musical inspiration and as a result, we’ve seen some pretty cheeky Christmas music emerge over the years. Perhaps the most famous example of this is “Santa Baby”, sung by Eartha Kitt and remade by dozens of artists since its original release in the early 1950s. Stars like Madonna, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Faith Evans, LeAnn Rimes, Ashanti, Kylie Minogue, the Pussycat Dolls, and even Michael Bublé have all done their own rendition of the classic.

But since Eartha changed course on Christmas music back in the 1950s, paving the way for other artists to do the same, there have been tons of songs that have incorporated love, romance and even sex into holiday music. So why is it so jarring when Chloe does it? The question is, what are we really divided over – and why people seem to be okay with sexy Christmas music depending on who sings it. It appears that if the song is framed and presented as playful innuendo, it’s acceptable, but when a contemporary female musician, a Black one at that, uses her sexuality as the centrepiece, people have a lot more to say.

To be clear, people have always had something to say about raunchy Christmas music. When Eartha Kitt first released “Santa Baby”, people were upset over the lyrics, leading to it being banned in some U.S. cities, mostly in the south. In fact, European royalty including the “queen of Scandinavia” [sic] expressed shock and the king and queen of Greece demanded the song be removed from theatre performances throughout the nation, saying it was too much for their ‘royalty audience’. Even the song’s composer, Phil Springer, was uncomfortable making the hit.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he revealed that he initially wanted to turn the song down over its sexual nature. But he was told by the music publishers to ‘stick to the music’ and let them worry about whether the song was ‘sacrilegious’.

The thing about “Santa Baby”, though, was that at the time of recording, Eartha Kitt was considered one of the sexiest women on Broadway – and according to Springer, the sexiest woman in the world. This highlights the correlation between a woman’s sexuality being the centrepiece of the song and how that drives discomfort.

Chloe’s sexuality is definitely the centrepiece of this song, particularly in the visuals for it. Throughout the music video, she appears dressed in holiday lingerie and she’s mostly styled after Cindy Lou from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Perhaps part of the discomfort stems from the use of visual symbols of innocence deliberately being combined with adult sexual expression.

I’ve written in the past about how much of a disadvantage it has been for Chloe and her sister Halle to have risen to fame when they were teenagers. Because it appears that in many ways, society still views them that way. That’s part of the reason much of the sisters’ attempts to embrace the sexier side of themselves, like the notorious lollipop video that Chloe had to delete, has fallen flat with different parts of the audience.

But it’s interesting to look at whether other musical artists have faced the same disadvantage. Because when you look at someone like Ariana Grande, for example, who was also a teenager during her rise to fame and has a catalogue of sexy Christmas music, the reception to her has been very different. Sure, Ariana’s Christmas music and the visuals for it are way more chill than Chloe’s latest hit. But both Chloe and Ariana have toyed with the contrast between youthful, doll-like aesthetics and adult sexuality. But the stark difference in reception leads me to the conclusion that there could be some hyper-sexualization of Chloe happening, which is often the case when we’re looking at Black women versus their white counterparts.

Ariana Grande built an entire holiday catalogue around flirty, sexy Christmas R&B. But because she has been successful in presenting it within the cheeky, playful language of pop music, for the most part, it’s been a hit. Chloe, on the other hand, has been a lot more overt with her sexuality, even when she’s presented herself against the backdrop of the doll-like aesthetic.

Both women are playing with the tension between innocence and sexuality, but the internet's reaction suggests that audiences aren't necessarily interpreting it the same way for both women. Not to mention Ariana’s ability to seamlessly transition between different genres of music, something we’ve also seen with other white artists like Miley Cyrus, is a privilege that isn’t entirely available to Black artists like Chloe (and even Beyoncé) who tend to have less genre fluidity.

Maybe the question isn’t whether Christmas music itself has become overly sexual. The question is why there is still so much shock and awe when a woman decides to make an overly sexual Christmas song? Whether we’re considering Eartha Kitt’s nearly 75-year-old hit, Ariana Grande’s sexy and sultry Christmas catalogue, or Chloe Bailey taking sexy Christmas music into unchartered territory, these women are all exercising autonomy. And perhaps that’s what people are really taking issue with.