Posted on 04/26/2003 11:35:34 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Dixie Chicks launch full-frontal attack
04/25/2003
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.
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(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.
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
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?
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.
The big mystery is how somebody like Maines, who's plainly too dumb to figure this same thing out, can survive for 27 years.
But I have no doubt who'll be the opening act at the next DNC socialist fest !
Stay Safe Timesink !
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
Yes, and yes!!
LOL
Howdy Squantos!
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.
Imagine if FReepers.... nevermind.
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