![\"shutupandsing.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/01\/shutupandsing.jpg\")
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since i got back from Nashville, i’ve been playing the latest Dixie Chicks CD all of the time. in the kitchen (which is where i play my music, leaving the door to my room open). probably driving my housemates nuts. it was time to go to the movie tonight.<\/p>\n
maggie had told me the story: the singer Natalie, from Texas, makes a comment about being ashamed that George Bush is from Texas, at a concert in London. weeks later the comments gets picked up in the US, and the ball of a campaign against the Dixie Chicks gets rolling, including a boycott of their music on virtually all of the country music radio stations in the midwest and south.<\/p>\n
the movie documents the escalation. the comment at the time when the US is invading Iraq and thousands and thousands of people are on the streets of London. (you’d have to say something when you’re a (country) band from Texas playing those days, no… i remember the beautiful steamy intimate Amparanoia concert in El Meteco at precisely the same time, with Amparanoia saying “nosotros somos de Madrid pero… SOMOS CONTRA LA GUERRA!!! as she was screaming and jumping she lost her balance and fell off the improvised small stage, and in whose arms did she fall… yep, i just had to mention that sweet memory.) the concerted effort to boycott them, through right-wing republican websites calling for people to contact their local radio stations and threaten to withdraw support if they continue to play the Chicks. radio and record stations with big garbage cans outside where people can come to throw their Dixie Chicks’ CDs. people protesting with banners (and American flags) at their concerts. brief pieces of interviews with these people throughout the documentary: against “freedom of speech” which is obviously used in the Dixie Chicks’ defense, one person says something along the lines of: “freedom of speech doesn’t include giving your country a bad name when you’re abroad”.<\/p>\n
what happened with the Dixie Chicks is set up in a dramatic way in the documentary. when i report about the movie to my housemates, some are quite shocked (and also quick to make it into something about “those people” in the midwest and south, the bushpeople) and mihui adds that there is something about this government that polarizes people. she tells me once more the painful story about a old school friend who was staying over. they happened to get into a discussion about the president, or mihui happened to make a critical remark about the president, and soon enough the discussion got out of hand. she got emotional, hysterical, mihui says, and ended with a comment about if she doesn’t like what’s going on in the US, that she’d better get on a plane and go back to where she came from (and she didn’t meant LA, where mihui is born). the friend took her bags and checked in a hotel, she didn’t want to sleep at mihui’s place anymore, and they haven’t talked since. her mihui’s point: all through her studies and law school she met many people with political convinctions that differ from her own, but she didn’t have the impression that discussions got so polarized as they do since Bush.<\/p>\n
the movie goes through some effort to portray the three women as ordinary white southren country girls: the images from the ranch, the stories of growing up with country music, also the emphasis on (two of) them as mothers. in a sense they are portrayed as more “real”, more representative of the south, than Bush and his companions. which is precisely why the respons is so strong and violent, i guess. one of them says as much in the movie: it’s because we’re the image of the All American Girl. and precisely in that light it’s interesting to see the process they go through of taking a public political position. kind of trown in to it – Natalie is portrayed as a big mouth – but in the fact of nasty reactions they decide to stick together and stand up for peace and for a different kind of patriotism (american flags on the other side). and in the process – narrated in many songs on their latest CD – they have in fact become a different kind of band, more well-known than they would have been and with a whole new spectrum of fans. like me.<\/p>\n
I’m not ready to make nice since i got back from Nashville, i’ve been playing the latest Dixie Chicks CD all of the time. in the kitchen (which is where i play my music, leaving the door to my room open). probably driving my housemates nuts. it was time to go to the movie tonight. maggie had told me the story: … Continue reading “shut up and sing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sarah.constantvzw.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI’m not ready to back down
\nI’m still mad as hell and
\nI don’t have time to go round and round and round
\n[…] It turned my whole world around
\nAnd I kind of like it…<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"