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.
Which came first… the Dixie Chicks or the rotten egg?
So they're transsexuals?
Difficult when you have the IQ of a house plant.
???? Still waiting for mine.
So this is what they've become. They're no longer a band they're a cause.
We did? When did we do that?
When those fans make enough noise to the market place, the market place itself then has a decision of their own to make...which they are making because they are in business to make money, not to cater to a bunch of whining, quasi-liberal girls who blab their mouth.
These girls are free to state their opinion, they are also subject to the consequences that those stated opinions generate in the market place.
It is really a simple as that.
All of this whining, boo-hooing, and cries of censorship are just all the more indication that these cry-baby girls have not matured in the least...but still wanting to blame some one else for the results of their own actions.
The DBM media can't believe that regular folks on their own were offended and decided not to listen to them anymore. No the "sheep" had to have been given marching orders from somewhere.
Ummm...no comment.
The more they rant, the more people will slip through their fingers.
I didn't get one, either. Glad I decided to boycott those dumb cluckers on my own.
Maines and Co. are too arrogant to acknowledge the foolishness of their statements. They are the modern-day liberal and bigger than life in their own eyes. They sincerely believe that we conservative folks are just unenlightened. I have nothing but disdain for these narcissists.
Ummmmm I don't remember Free Republic sending out form letters????? When did that happen?
???? Still waiting for mine.
Yeah, me too. I didn't get one. Do you think maybe this writer was lying?
In their minds free speech means not just that the government can take no action against them...but also that their fans must not be allowed to not buy their records.
That's the free market, sweetie. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. I don't like what you're spewing, I'm not about to buy what you're selling.
These women only hope everybody simply spells their names correctly. They got more PR with no content.
What? FR sent out 30k letters? What do they mean by this?
Oh, dear Dixie Chicks, if you come here to "research" again please be advised that only government can censor you.
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