Even the title of this "documentary" is ripped off and plagiarized from Laura Ingraham's book.
What? They didn't think anyone would notice?
What a bunch of talentless jerks these "women" are.
Posted on 09/14/2006 4:41:58 AM PDT by kristinn
Edited on 09/14/2006 3:04:35 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
After facing a barrage of insults, death threats and all kinds of broken records in the face of an offhand remark about the U.S. president, the Dixie Chicks are no longer chicks.
"It turned us into women," says Natalie Maines, speaking about the past three years in near media exile, facing one of the largest pop culture controversies in recent history.
On the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Maines made an offhand comment about being against violence, and being embarrassed that the U.S. president, George W. Bush was from Texas, her home state. Despite their being a top-selling act, they soon faced fans who had turned into haters. Record sales plummeted. Some radio stations excluded them from their playlists. People said their career at the top of country was over.
The conflict was so rich in scope and meaning, it attracted the attention of two-time Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple and her colleague, Cecilia Peck (Gregory's daughter).
The result is Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing! - one of the hottest documentary titles of this year's Toronto International Film Festival.
Beginning the voyage with the actual comment of the title recorded in a London amphitheatre, Kopple and Peck take a full immersion tour through the post-Bush-slag landscape, and follow the Chicks - Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison - as they attempt to understand what happened, and how to move forward without their sturdy net of a solid fan base.
"In watching this movie, it felt like I was watching myself mature," Maines says.
Robison echoes the sentiment. "I think, for the most part, when your career is going great, you don't really have the opportunity to soul search ... but we did. And we do think it happened for a reason."
At a Shut Up and Sing! press conference, the Chicks say they have absolutely no regrets about speaking their mind. If anything, the experience made them realize just how vulnerable to censorship we are in the world of consolidated media ownership and nationally uniform radio playlists.
"Consolidation means one guy at the top decides everything ... and I don't think the media has been successful in pointing out why it's so dangerous," Robison says.
"People don't understand why this is so important," Maines says. "But if you live in Lubbock, Texas, where I'm from - you just have one paper and one radio station and unless you're savvy on the Internet, that's it for you. If Bush said get a gun and kill an Arab, they would do that."
Maguire says if it had been just one - or even several - DJs who felt it was just too much of a hassle to spin Dixie Chicks singles, they would have been fine with the boycott. The problem was how the whole anti-Chicks campaign was orchestrated by a select few through a right-wing Internet site called the Free Republic.
According to the research done by Kopple and the Chicks themselves, the Free Republic sent out form letters to their 30,000-thick subscription list with market-specific information, saying if the station did not stop playing their music, people would cease listening to the station.
The campaign worked, and the Chicks' current tour for their new album is being booked at venues half the size of their previous tour. "What was wrong was that (the decision to not play Dixie Chicks records) was coming from the top ... and that (DJs) were not allowed to play the records, even if they wanted to. ... I think that kind of censorship is dangerous," says Maguire.
Kopple says what happened to the Dixie Chicks really struck a chord because it spoke to the changing times.
"In the ... '60s, there was a sense of a cultural movement that happened, and you really felt a sense of belonging to a community. They (Dixie Chicks) were on their own, and our hope is that people who see this film ... will become part of their community so the Chicks no longer have to stand alone," Kopple says.
Maines, who says she always felt the support of her bandmates and family, says she's still a little surprised by the whole journey. Though she's learned to really think hard about what she says to the press these days, she says she may well have said the very same thing - even with a little reflection. "Even if I had thought about what I wanted to say, I don't think I ever could have imagined what happened. What I said was just so lame."
Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing! is slated for a fall /winter theatrical release.
I've been a member since 1998, and Jim didn't send me a form letter.
Waaaah!
LOL
ping to link in post 72 and thread
I'm fairly certain such collateral was never distributed - but of course I am wearing my 5 mil, tin-foil Freeper cap, as I type.
Hey Dicks:
We did it to Dan Rather and we CAN do it to you.
LOL
Same here
Even the title of this "documentary" is ripped off and plagiarized from Laura Ingraham's book.
What? They didn't think anyone would notice?
What a bunch of talentless jerks these "women" are.
... it turned Natalie into two, maybe three women...
Oh egads! That pix of Maines is enough to make one lose their breakfast.
Yes. I used the word "suck". May not have been the best word to use, but it is the truth. I mean come on. Goodbye Earl? If some male would re-cut that song as Goodbye Pearl, NOW and that whole lot would be all over the artist.
Spot on. Well said.
Paraphrasing Yogi: "If people won't go to Dixie Chicks' concerts, you can't stop 'em."
Large market radio stations hire people to conduct focus groups to tell them what people want to hear. They bring in several groups in the town were the station is located and play songs for them. The reactions by age group, disposable income, and other factors are noted.
Smaller market radio stations can't afford the expense of dedicated focus groups. So there are companies that do focus groups for a number of stations.
Then there are companies that report on every record played by the big market stations. If you can't afford to do focus groups you can get the play list of stations that do.
Some stations will buy the focus groups but also buy the play lists of competitors as well as those of other big markets.
In the end it is the result of the focus groups that count... with two exceptions. If a station gets a ton of legitimate male for a record or against a record it will be added or removed from the play list.
But NO station will pay any attention to form letters. If they did all it would take to make the play list or be removed from a play list was for some individual to buy a ton of form letters,sign em and send them in.
But mail just reinforces the focus groups. I have never heard of a case where the FOCUS GROUPS said one thing and the MAIL said another. It just does not happen.
Okay, I never got letters from you guys. I feel deprived.
That would be posts such as this...
And, then, of course, the:
"Which ones would those be genius? Seems to me you're the only one doing what you accuse a couple of dozen FReepers of doing. What a whiner".
used in your post....pretty much sums up the "agree with me or we'll call you names" of every good DU'er.
But, I'll take the "genius" part. That one, at least is accurate.
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