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'm impressed! Free Republic is beginning to reach Rovian status. Perhaps we will have our own weather machine soon.
Amazing! Bash the President, get a movie. And who says Hollywood is weird in its belifes? Can someone point me in the direction of the political science school they went to?
I sent her a link to this thread. I don't know if she'll bother to read it...
Y'all are hereby oredered to boycott those durned scalawags callin' thereselfs "The Dixie Chics." They has insulated our Presidint and I'm mad as hell and ainta gonna take it no more. Now git out there and boycott up a storm.
Big Jim
Well, I hope she doesn't take offense to my "off-hand" remarks about her impotence as a political writer.
;)
I didn't get a letter either, yet I still managed to boycott them. It's amazing I was able to make a decision like that all on my own without being told by Free Republic what actions I should take. /s
Stop calling me Shirley!
Stop calling me Shirley!
Couldn't possibly be Natalie's muslim husband behind her hatefilled remarks???????????
sorry - didn't notice the "whore" reference.
that is kind of pointless
Censorship? Gimme a break. We MUST listen to their music? We MUST buy their albums? We MUST attend their concerts? Sounds a tab bit totalitarian -- do the chicks do a goosestep on stage?
They're nuts.
Fans have the right to reject or accept anyone or any group in a free society... And maybe that's the real problem. The chicks feel we should be forced to give them our money, forced to buy their records, and forced to attend their concerts.
The other thing that made me smile was the fact, as mentioned in another article, that the Chicks CHOSE to take a PERCENTAGE of the concert tour rather than the generous GUARANTEED $$ AMOUNT which was offered by the record company.
The Chicks, at the time, told their promoters that they were certain their anti-Bush rants would make them ever more popular with the music listening public.
According to industry experts, however, the Chicks lost millions of $$$ due to their self centered decision.
BwAaaaaaHaaaaa!
A LOST cause I would say.
The Proud
The Select Few
The FReepers!
SEMPER FREEP!
School? They don't need no stinkin' school! You go to school, they might make you think.They read the paper, and that's enough. Them reporter fellers, they're smart! People that's just folks, have a hard time figgerin' what's right - but them reporters is OBJECTIVE! It says so right here in this paper, see?
</sarcasm>
Er.Maines. :0)
I agree, they helped themselves along when they denigrated their fans and said they no longer wanted them. Remember that little tirade by the Nat? I'm sure someone here has the exact quote, it was extremely insulting to anyone who had ever like their music.
????? I didn't get my form letter either. If I were a lawyer, I would surely think that remark was DEFAMATORY to Free Republic. . . .
Unless . . . ya'll got a form letter and I was LEFT OUT!!!
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