I've never been a huge fan of the Dixie Chicks. Until now. After watching this documentary for the second time, I went out and bought their latest album, mostly out of sheer solidarity.
The movie works on many levels. It works because technically, it's a well made and perfectly edited documentary. It works because it's an interesting look at the music industry (specifically the Country Music industry). It's a great portrait of successful women, as they combine careers in the spotlight with family life and the sheer need to stay sane while on the road, in a business notorious for career ruining distractions. It also works because the documentary makers Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, just happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch a particular moment in American history, a particular mood in certain sectors of American society.
If you wanted to imagine a place to foment political controversy and start manning the barricades against the US government, you'd be hard put to think of a less likely place than the Shepherd's Bush Empire, a theatre well to the west of the London West End. It's not the type of place where revolutions are begat. I think I went there a couple of times in my youth, to see Santana (or was that the Hammersmith Odeon..?) But that was the unlikely setting for the Chick's Neo-Radical Natalie Maines to utter those infamous words "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas". This was just before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, and, rather like that other famous Texan under statement "Houston, we have a problem" her words went on to ricochet around the world, well beyond anything she could have imagined.
Subjected to bans across the American airwaves, their CDs trodden underfoot, their sponsors fleeing, vilified in the press and ultimately on the receiving end of death threats, the Chicks stuck together, and stuck to their guns. As the controversy boils around them, Peck and Kopple show the Dixie Chicks assembling a new album, touring, and looked after their various kids and husbands (as all good country girls should...) and generally proving that these three delightfully talented women had backbones of steel. It can't be easy going on stage in front of several thousand people, knowing that someone has threatened to shoot you that night. But that's exactly what they did, and I love them for it. It's fascinating stuff!
Maines herself seemed utterly astonished that anyone cared what she thought about the president or anything else. As she put it in the movie (and I'm paraphrasing wildly) "If I were Bruce Springsteen, no one would turn a hair if I said that." But she's not Bruce Springsteen. She's a nice Texas girly, and a Country Music star, and apparently they aren't supposed to have original and radical thoughts.
It's nice to be able to note that since the film was completed, the Dixie Chicks have won 5 Grammys for the album the controversy gave birth to, and that their careers and energy appear to have been reinvigorated. They found a new producer and maybe a whole new audience. I'd say right now, their popularity is a whole lot higher than that of either GW Bush or the Iraq war. And this particular Classic Rock Neanderthal might even buy another Dixie Chicks album.
The movie works on many levels. It works because technically, it's a well made and perfectly edited documentary. It works because it's an interesting look at the music industry (specifically the Country Music industry). It's a great portrait of successful women, as they combine careers in the spotlight with family life and the sheer need to stay sane while on the road, in a business notorious for career ruining distractions. It also works because the documentary makers Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck, just happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch a particular moment in American history, a particular mood in certain sectors of American society.
If you wanted to imagine a place to foment political controversy and start manning the barricades against the US government, you'd be hard put to think of a less likely place than the Shepherd's Bush Empire, a theatre well to the west of the London West End. It's not the type of place where revolutions are begat. I think I went there a couple of times in my youth, to see Santana (or was that the Hammersmith Odeon..?) But that was the unlikely setting for the Chick's Neo-Radical Natalie Maines to utter those infamous words "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas". This was just before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, and, rather like that other famous Texan under statement "Houston, we have a problem" her words went on to ricochet around the world, well beyond anything she could have imagined.
Subjected to bans across the American airwaves, their CDs trodden underfoot, their sponsors fleeing, vilified in the press and ultimately on the receiving end of death threats, the Chicks stuck together, and stuck to their guns. As the controversy boils around them, Peck and Kopple show the Dixie Chicks assembling a new album, touring, and looked after their various kids and husbands (as all good country girls should...) and generally proving that these three delightfully talented women had backbones of steel. It can't be easy going on stage in front of several thousand people, knowing that someone has threatened to shoot you that night. But that's exactly what they did, and I love them for it. It's fascinating stuff!
Maines herself seemed utterly astonished that anyone cared what she thought about the president or anything else. As she put it in the movie (and I'm paraphrasing wildly) "If I were Bruce Springsteen, no one would turn a hair if I said that." But she's not Bruce Springsteen. She's a nice Texas girly, and a Country Music star, and apparently they aren't supposed to have original and radical thoughts.
It's nice to be able to note that since the film was completed, the Dixie Chicks have won 5 Grammys for the album the controversy gave birth to, and that their careers and energy appear to have been reinvigorated. They found a new producer and maybe a whole new audience. I'd say right now, their popularity is a whole lot higher than that of either GW Bush or the Iraq war. And this particular Classic Rock Neanderthal might even buy another Dixie Chicks album.