Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Dixie Chicks launch full-frontal attack - "not...standing their ground...pushing it even farther"
The Dallas Morning News ^ | April 25, 2003 | By TOM MAURSTAD / The Dallas Morning News

Posted on 04/26/2003 11:35:34 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP

Dixie Chicks launch full-frontal attack


04/25/2003

By TOM MAURSTAD / The Dallas Morning News

You're a platinum-selling country star riding a record-setting wave of popularity. But a few weeks ago, you made a comment during a concert that has angered and alienated your core constituency.

What do you do?

If you're the Dixie Chicks, you pose naked on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

This latest move is likely to turn up the flames on a controversy that has been burning for more than a month. That's a feeling echoed by program directors at the area's two leading country-music stations, neither of which has played a Dixie Chicks' song since early March when singer Natalie Maines told a London audience she was ashamed that President Bush is from Texas.

Under the headline "Dixie Chicks Come Clean," the May 2 issue shows the country-music trio posed in a pyramid of bare skin. Across their torsos are painted phrases – "Traitors," "Saddam's Angels," "Shut Up!" – drawn from the volumes of letters and e-mails the band has received.

Also Online
Video: Local radio station weighs in on whether to continue Chicks ban
In the tradition of mainstream magazines featuring nude celebrities on their covers (Janet Jackson on Rolling Stone, Demi Moore on Vanity Fair), the Dixie Chicks are positioned in such a way – a hand here, a leg there – that no private parts are exposed. Such attention to the technicalities of nudity does nothing to diminish the provocative nature of the image.

(And in answer to the first question this photograph will spark, an Entertainment Weekly spokeswoman asserts: "That's them, their bodies. There were no computer tricks, no airbrushing.")

With the women's unflinching stares into the camera and the blurb's promise of "Country's Controversial Superstars Take on Their Critics," the cover is striking, even defiant.

"We wanted to show the absurdity of the extreme names people have been calling us," fiddle player Martie Maguire says in the story.

The Dixie Chicks ... stirring up more controversy with their upcoming <I> Entertainment Weekly </I> cover photo.
AP
The Dixie Chicks ... stirring up more controversy with their upcoming Entertainment Weekly cover photo.

The attention-getting cover story comes on the heels of the group's interview this week with Diane Sawyer on ABC's Primetime Thursday . Publicity campaigns undertaken by celebrities who have fallen from their public's graces are nothing new. But traditionally the celebrity is practicing some form of damage control – a high-profile mea culpa or by going silent on the subject.

But not the Dixie Chicks. Far from throwing water on the fire, they seem to be throwing gasoline.

"What this reflects is that the old damage control just doesn't work anymore because everybody knows the playbook," says Robert Thompson, a professor of pop culture and television at Syracuse University. "Everybody is so media savvy now that if you apologize, people just dismiss it as what your consultant told you to say."

A band representative on Thursday said the singers had no comment on the cover photograph or the interview. But others in country music certainly have.

"I don't know that they'll ever be as big with the country audience as they used to or as important to the country audience as they used to be," says Paul Williams, program director of KPLX-FM (99.5) "The Wolf."

"At first I thought it was a joke," says Ted Stecker, program director for KSCS-FM (96.3), of the Entertainment Weekly cover. "I don't think it's a good move for them right now.

Unlike other outspoken celebrities, such as rocker Sheryl Crow or activist director Michael Moore, whose anti-war comments have generally been applauded by their fans, the Dixie Chicks' comments play against country music's bedrock fans.

"You could write off the comment that started all this as something said in the excitement of the moment," says Leo Braudy, author of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History. "But what's going on now is the result of calculation.

"It's a pretty striking strategy. Rather than backing down and appearing on the cover waving a flag or dressed in military uniforms, they are not just standing their ground, they're pushing it even farther."

Staff critic Mario Tarradell contributed to this report.

E-mail tmaurstad@dallasnews.com


Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/042503dnovechicks.18b99.html


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-166 next last
To: NetValue
The Dixie Chicks are obviously idiots who can play musical instuments and sing, sort of like animals who can talk, but just barely.
121 posted on 04/26/2003 5:22:30 PM PDT by Dec31,1999 (Full speed ahead!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Bonaparte
They have always had contempt for their C & W core audience. They just played to them before because they was the one that brung 'em to the dance.
122 posted on 04/26/2003 5:30:00 PM PDT by fightinJAG (Do not play checkers with George W. Bush.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: SkyPilot
I've been away from my computer for several days so I'm late expressing my gratitude. THANK YOU FOR THE GUT-LAUGHS!!! I about peed my pants when I saw that.
123 posted on 04/26/2003 5:37:41 PM PDT by ladywolf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
Thanks for posting, Timesink. It's about what I thought it would be. EW even doctored the lower photo to make NM look as trim as the other two. Too bad they forgot to do the same to the top photo where she looks like she borrowed one of Mama Cass's moo-moos to keep from being mistaken for The Blob (who has now, no doubt, surpassed her in popularity).

Hilarious that they think it's no use "reasoning" with the millions of outraged fans who are all wrong while the DCs are all right. This interview reminds me of the lame excuses defendants used to spout to Judge Wapner on People's Court. One thing's for sure, though -- George "Kingfish" Stevens had better look for his laurels. Fat Nat is close on his heels.

"You see, Calhoun, it's very easy to explain. When those words came tumbling outta my mouth, I just wasn't watching, that is, I wasn't thinking, uh, that they would do that so loud. If I'da known, I woulda covered up Mama's ears, but I didn't, so I couldn'ta known, you see. I think it musta been one of those ventriloquators in the audience. Yes, that's got to be it, a ventriloquator."

Hey, Fat Nat! Guess what? You're free to say anything you want. Your (former) fans are free to say anything they want, listen to whatever music and radio stations they want, and buy whatever they want. Everybody's free! Ain't it grand?

124 posted on 04/26/2003 5:39:52 PM PDT by Bonaparte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: MeeknMing
At least they're locking up the dozens of country music fans in the blue states.
125 posted on 04/26/2003 5:39:53 PM PDT by Petronski (I'm not always cranky.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bonaparte
One chunky Chick
126 posted on 04/26/2003 5:47:37 PM PDT by CedarDave (The number of Saddam sightings is rapidly approaching those of Elvis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 108 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
NATALIE MAINES I was shocked that they were shocked, I guess. I didn't know people thought of me as conservative. I've never tried to hide who I am. People know us. They know that we're nice...

So, people who are conservative AREN'T nice?

MAINES We've always respected and accepted constructive criticism. I completely understand the people who hate what I said. That's America. No problem with that. But it's interesting to be boycotted because we weren't -- I'm sorry, I won't say ''we'' anymore -- because I wasn't for the war.

Too bad Nat that you just don't get it -- When you speak out and your views are completely contrary to those of your main audience, you are going to be intimately associated with those views and you should expect to pay the price for alienating your biggest fan base.

This interview shows that they are just as clueless as the usual bunch of Hollywood loony leftist liberals -- "If we would all just get along with each other, there would be no problems in the world". Tell that to the hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) who lost their lives under Saddam and tell that to future US citizens who would very likely lose their lives with the terror tools developed and exported by him.

127 posted on 04/26/2003 6:08:09 PM PDT by CedarDave (The number of Saddam sightings is rapidly approaching those of Elvis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: CedarDave
Ya know, Dave, it's a funny thing. My grocer has never uttered one word to me about politics. Not one. Come to think of it, neither has my dentist or my doctor or my mechanic. Do you suppose they think I might take my business elsewhere if their politics offended me? Yeah, I think that's probably it.

The big mystery is how somebody like Maines, who's plainly too dumb to figure this same thing out, can survive for 27 years.

128 posted on 04/26/2003 6:21:15 PM PDT by Bonaparte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 127 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
Sales down 40%, the real American "opinion" of their "opinion" has been validated with the dollar versus the hollar per se .....her apology to her fans on their web site was a hollow self preserving lie. She has the right to say what's on her mind and I have the right to say bullshit and not buy her songs. Fact is I never did before all this took place.

But I have no doubt who'll be the opening act at the next DNC socialist fest !

Stay Safe Timesink !

129 posted on 04/26/2003 6:30:19 PM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: SkyPilot
LOL LOL LOL
130 posted on 04/26/2003 6:40:34 PM PDT by Arpege92
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Squantos
* COUNTRY MUSIC FANS BOO DIXIE CHICKS

    Country Music Television recently aired the 'CMT Flameworthy 2003 Video Music Awards,' awarded based on the votes of country music fans.  "And to say these fans have soured on the Dixie Chicks, after one member of the band said she was ashamed to be from the same state as President Bush, is an understatement.  The trio was shut out in every category for which it was nominated.  The crowd was very hostile to even the mention of their names.  Feisty comic Brett Butler pleaded: "The South is a place of sin and redemption and hopefully forgiveness.  Maybe in a couple of weeks we'll just all try to forgive the Dixie Chicks, OK?"  "That prompted loud and sustained boos from the audience, which upset Miss Butler, telling the people in the balcony "by the time you get down here ... I'll already be gone.  Everybody in here's a good American, so just stop it."  They didn't.  That elicited more boos.  The Dixie Chicks didn't show.

        -- From John McCaslin's "Inside the Beltway," 4/14/03
 

131 posted on 04/26/2003 6:45:23 PM PDT by Bonaparte
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 129 | View Replies]

To: Eaker
Is it me who thinks the Dixie Chick with brown hair has a flounder face....her eyes are either crossed or just too close together.
132 posted on 04/26/2003 6:46:40 PM PDT by Arpege92
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Bonaparte
LOL.....Stay Safe !!
133 posted on 04/26/2003 6:49:56 PM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 131 | View Replies]

To: Arpege92; Squantos
her eyes are either crossed or just too close together.

Yes, and yes!!

LOL



Howdy Squantos!

134 posted on 04/26/2003 6:53:53 PM PDT by Eaker (64,999,987 firearm owners killed no one yesterday. Somehow, it didn't make the news.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 132 | View Replies]

To: Eaker
Ding..........YOU HAVE FREEP-MAIL.............Ding !
135 posted on 04/26/2003 7:05:35 PM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
Excellent post!

NATALIE MAINES I was shocked that they were shocked, I guess. I didn't know people thought of me as conservative. I've never tried to hide who I am.

Well, they sure as bleep know who you are NOW...and they don't like you much.

136 posted on 04/26/2003 7:10:23 PM PDT by lsee
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: MeeknMing
What is it lately with all these idiots protesting by getting naked in public? People are going to notice that they are naked and not what they are protesting, which in a way is good as it's only left-wingers doing it.

Imagine if FReepers.... nevermind.

137 posted on 04/26/2003 9:29:24 PM PDT by DBtoo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bonaparte
I swear, Phat Nat's nose in the third photo does look like a porker! Take a look!
138 posted on 04/26/2003 9:29:41 PM PDT by EastCoast
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 107 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
I don't get it. Why do they think they are the only ones who have the freedom of speech?

I fully support their right to what ever they want. If they are stupid enough to trash their own careers, they have all the freedom in the world to do that.

At some point maybe these liberal types will realize that a consumer driven career should be better handled.

We do have the freedom to not have a thing in the world to do with them.

Go Marshall Tucker. I always liked that music anyway. It was my first concert ever.

Not that I go to concerts any more. :-)
139 posted on 04/26/2003 9:30:58 PM PDT by Jael
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: Eaker
Are the two non-chubby ones sisters?
140 posted on 04/26/2003 9:41:18 PM PDT by DBtoo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 101-120121-140141-160161-166 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson