This is a documentary about the Dixie Chicks. Now, you probaly won’t be surprised to hear that I got no interest in the music of the Dixie Chicks. But you may or may not be surprised to hear that I liked the movie alot.
Of course the title refers to the main subject of the movie, the controversy that came in 2003 after Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines ad-libbed the dangerous sentence, “We’re ashamed that the President of the United States comes from Texas,” during a concert in London. Because of that one sentence (and some mild anti-war, pro-human life comments on the eve of the invasion) right wing web sights organized call-in campaigns to country music stations across the country, causing the corporation that runs the computer that programs every radio station to not play Dixie Chicks songs anymore. Meanwhile, idiots with bad handwriting made signs and stood outside of Dixie Chicks concerts reinforcing all the worst stereotypes about lower class white southerners.
This political context is the hook that makes the movie interesting, it’s obviously what got me in the theater, but thankfully it’s not the whole show. What really makes the movie work is the charisma and humanity of these three woman in the band. We see them doing alot of things: answering criticism in interviews, performing, writing new songs, giving birth, discussing security after death threats, calling Bush a “dumbfuck.” What we don’t see them doing is fighting. Maybe it’s selective editing, I don’t know, but it was refreshing to see a music documentary where the whole band supports each other for the entire running time. They don’t always agree, but they never seem to get mad at each other. Diane Sawyer tries to bait the two backup Chicks to turn on Natalie for having the nerve to say one honest sentence while performing. But they don’t do it. More than anything this is a story about them standing united and not backing down. In the end they have switched out some of their old fans for new ones, they aren’t being played on the same radio stations, and they have had to scale down their tour a little bit. But they have kept their integrity and their dignity. And it doesn’t hurt that they were obviously right about the war, as hinted by occasional appearances by the notorious “Mission Accomplished” banner, vintage statements about weapons of mass destruction, etc. Although I’m sure they’d rather have been wrong about that. (more…)
I never heard of this 2007 documentary about Public Enemy until I saw it in the new releases this week. Looks like it was made 3 years ago to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first album. I guess on DVD it must be celebrating the anniversary of their third album. But that’s Fear of a Black Planet, that’s a great album.
