Those of you that know me know I’m pretty easy-going and not weird at all, so the fact that some of the lyrics to beloved Canadian goddess Shania Twain’s 1997 hit, “That Don’t Impress Me Much” have been really bothering me lately is both relatable and timely.
My main issue is not that Shania is not impressed. Indeed, it’s certainly valid to be unimpressed by a man simply because he has a degree, is vain about his looks, or has a car. Any Joe Schmo off the street could have one of those things, if not all three! Certainly, I would encourage such a lacklustre response, were those the actual factors by which she was unimpressed.
But, contrary to popular belief, that’s not the case. Shania doesn’t stop there. She explains in further detail her real criterion for being impressed, and it is actually far stranger, not to mention absurd: keeping her warm in the middle of the night.
Had Shania just thought but one step further, she would have realized that any one of the men in her song could, indeed, have met her very short-sighted requirement for impressiveness.
The rocket scientist? He could easily have used those book-smarts she so derides, to invent some kind of heating apparatus.
That vain guy? At first, most people think he could have used that mirror to focus light into some kindling and start a small fire to keep her warm, which is a great idea, except Shania does specifically say the middle of the night and he’d need sun for that to work…Oh wait, what’s that you say, Shania? The vain guy was Brad Pitt all along? Well, he obviously has the capital to purchase any number of space heaters, heated blankets, or even whole heated homes made up of heated bedrooms in which you could spend a warm night all night, not just for the middle part.
And lastly, the guy with the car. Unless he’s driving a pre-1917 car, all cars have some kind of heating device installed. But hey, maybe he is driving something from before then. As an enclosed space, a car can heat up just from body heat, which we should all know from the documentary Titanic. So again, yet another oversight from Shania.
True, at the end of the song Shania does give brief shout-outs to Elvis, Tarzan, Captain Kirk and John Wayne, all of whom (with the one notable exception of Tarzan in his jungle days) would easily have had access to some kind of heating machine/warmth-creation device.
In short, Shania *should* have been impressed by all these guys, based on her own strange criterion, except for Tarzan. Just another example of nice guys being overlooked by women for a falsely-perceived lack of access to heated space and/or heating machines.
So, sorry Shania, but that don’t impress *me* much.
televanessa 