Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing!
This film was unavailable to me in my conservative military town, but Britt Augenfield at Special Ops Media was kind enough to provide me with a screening DVD. Thanks, Britt!
The filmmakers (Barbara Kopple and Cecelia Peck) wisely created a double movie with this documentary. On one side, it’s a detailed snapshot of America in the middle chunk of the Bush II administration, with regards to public attitudes toward Bush and the Iraq war, including enough contextual information as to help out a viewer decades hence. On the other side, it’s a gleeful and loving concert film, including career strategy sessions and familial glimpses into the real worlds of the Dixie Chicks.
The documentary concerns itself primarily with the comment heard ’round the world on the first leg of the Dixie Chick’s ironic-in-hindsight Top of the World tour, wherein Natalie Maines, ribbing her British audience on the controversial and polarizing eve of US-led invasion of Iraq, said offhand that she was ashamed that President Bush was from Texas. The audience cheered, the concert went on, and then the press decided to explode the story into a huge brou ha ha. The tagline of this movie is, “In the land of the free, can you dare to be brave?” It’s interesting to see the responses of people, comparing the Chicks to terrorists, to communists, to all kinds of things unrelated to approval of or disavowal of President Bush. It is also interesting to see how these musicians stood up to their stereotypical fanbase and embraced the fans that cared more about the music than about unpopular editorial commentary. They also embraced their new base of fans, the liberal country fan.
Shut Up and Sing (a direct quote from a protester) explores the effect of the Chicks’ liberal politics in the red-state world of country music, the corporate-led (Bush loves big business) blackout of Dixie Chick’s music, and the manufactured fury of the public. Why do I say it’s manufactured? The movie doesn’t come out and accuse Cox and Cumulus of inventing patriotic fervor, but how often do radio stations provide trash cans for people to come all the way down to the station just to discard a CD they bought and used to love?
Emily, Natalie, and Martie are intelligent, well-spoken, self-determining musicians with a lot of talent and a lot of support from their fans. At the time of The Comment, Bush’s approval was at an all-time high, and it looked like Iraq would be another month long scrimmage like his father had. In 2006, when they released their follow-up album, “Taking The Long Way,” the climate has changed even on Bush’s cronies’ side of the aisle. If the movie was a fiction, it couldn’t have a more exciting story arc and satisfying conclusion. If it hadn’t actually happened, however, it probably would have been reviewed as “farfetched” and “unkindly representing the intelligence of the country music fan base and conservative community.” Truth is stranger than fiction, and often makes a better story, too.
An anecdote: At the time, I hadn’t heard much Dixie Chicks music, I knew who they were but had none of their albums. I heard about the Clear Channel-run protests and the bulldozers running over CDs in the street (who paid for that? A disgruntled bubba?), and a movement for folks who support the Chicks’ right to free speech and/or how they feel about President Divider to run out and buy the new album, Home, preferably at an outlet that would most likely be boycotted by incensed red-state types (Wal-Mart). I broke my boycott of Wal-Mart and bought that album. I didn’t care if I liked it, I wanted to support the cause. Turns out I loved it, and I have now bought the one before it and the newest one.
MPAA Rating R-language
Release date 10/27/06
Time in minutes 99
Director Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck
Studio Weinstein Company
