These two are peas in a pod, no doubt.
Posted on 10/08/2006 12:35:00 PM PDT by Hetty_Fauxvert
TORONTO -- 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 war in 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 being the best-selling female act of all time, big fans turned into rabid haters. Record sales plummeted. Country radio 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 (Gregory’s daughter), Cecilia Peck. 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 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,” says Maines.
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.”
Looking fantastically glam as they address the media at a Shut Up and Sing! news 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.
“This wasn’t about us being women as much as it was about country music,” says Maines. “In our industry, they always blow off the liberal, Hollywood, pot-smoking celebrity For the (people who read the Free Republic), we were their wet dream.”
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, they 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.
For a society that prides itself in the notion of free speech and the red, white and blue, the Dixie Chicks’ descent into the land of crispy Salem witches seemed like a betrayal of crucial American truths — which is something Kopple has been chronicling ever since she started creating documentaries with Harlan County, U.S.A, a disturbing look at a miner’s strike in Kentucky.
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.
What pretentious DRIBBLE ... and the President of the United States of America is now responsible for private business and commerce in Lubbock, TX??
Arrogant, spoiled brats .. .. and suffering from BDS AND SBD ..(spoiled brat dimentia)= BDSSBD.
I guess the author never heard of 'Heart', which stuck to rock-n-roll and kept their political opinions to themselves.
LOL --- I quite agree.
Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. You still don't get it, do you? I, we (many, many of us at any rate) are perfectly willing to abide your having, and even expressing, divergent political views and still support your music. We do that all the time.
I love your father for instance, and the many wonderful contributions he has made to Texas music. I would be a little disappointed if I learned that he shared your fatuous and air-headed political views, but that wouldn't change how I felt.
Th(e) difference is your father is considerate, tolerant and humble. You, OTOH, are aggressively rude, proudly bigoted, and outrageously self absorbed. You denounce vast contingents of your (former) fan base as stupid and venal, based entirely on the most facile sorts of stereotypes, and then get offended that they are upset with you. And you think weathering (while actively feeding) this controversy has made you a "woman"? PLEASE!. It's only highlighted your immaturity. It's your snarling hatred and infantile whining that's turned away your fans. Why don't you grow up and take some responsibility?
[Note to Freepers: Natalies father Lloyd Maines is a venerable Texas guitarist, performer and record producer.]
PYE,
You registered on July 09, 2005 and are #214,484 to join the FreeRepublic.
Where is my letter?
That's a big difference! I wouldn't doubt George Jones, but I was going to call BS on George Strait!
The Chicks aren't giving money to keep FreeRepublic going -- and their lawyer doesn't donate to FreeRepublic either... does he? That smells like censorship...
And the chicks speak against us! Us - how dare they? And they've never sent money to keep FreeRepublic going. How can it be? It's censorship! That's the only answer.
Everyone must love us. And support us. Oh, wait, I'm not some puffed up idiot like the Chicks who thinks only my rights matter. Come to think of it, it's OK that they don't donate to FreeRepublic, and it's OK that I don't buy their CD's. Sheesh.
I think the Moose ate our letters....
What a whining bunch of muddle-headed bimbos. Nothing they say makes any sense, and they tend to contradict themselves - sometimes withing the very same sentence. Just amazing.
Rove is quite impressive, I must say. That new model 30000 automatic letter-writing machine covers his tracks better than the hurricane machine did!
Where's the letter?
" and besides ... we're only 30,000 thick ???"
I was hoping that just from a rock perspective, people could cite bigger selling "female acts".
These two are peas in a pod, no doubt.
Went to a concert once in 1973. Headliner was Jerry Jeff Walker, opened by Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids.
Owned a turntable, amplifier, speakers and such briefly (1974 - 1976).
Never owned the players or bought the medium for 8-track, casette or DVD.
My latest pickup has an FM radio, but I finally figured out how to make it not go there.
Don't know what to tell you other than that.
mass55th,
If there had been a letter, I'm sure you would have gotten one since your id is #59. I stand in reverence. I thought I'd been here a while (7/20/98 #7188).
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