Week 3: Shut up and Sing

After Dixie Chicks front-woman Natalie Maines infamously stated, “We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas,” the highest-grossing female band in the United States faced a bombardment of criticism and condemnation from fans, media, and especially from the country music scene they once belonged to. Shut Up and Sing (2006) follows the band’s public controversy and personal lives during the three years following this notorious remark, portraying the Dixie Chicks’ struggles between their positions as major country/pop stars, their personal anti-war sentiments, their roles as mothers and wives, and their love of music. Positioning the women firstly and most prominently as a strong and resilient “sisterhood,” the documentary ultimately shows the Dixie Chicks public and musical comeback from being boycotted and labelled unpatriotic Saddam sympathizers through producing another best-selling record, which musically encompasses much of the aftermath of Maines’ initial comment.

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I was never a Dixie Chicks fan, but I've gained a lot of respect for the country/pop group since watching Shut Up and Sing. The documentary was pretty corny and predictable, but I thought it did a great job of portraying the struggle the Dixie Chicks went through after expressing their anti-war and anti-Bush sentiments. It seems their position as the all-American country girl group was what the country music scene expected of them, and any movement straying away from that image was unwelcome. It was disappointing to see so much hostility aimed towards the women, simply because of their previous image as country singers with no previous instances of 'shocking' political statements.

The documentary, focusing around the female musicians and their struggle with those who painted them in an unfair light, was especially moving to me at the time of our screening. That week my ex-boyfriend and I had been arguing, and I was feeling especially crabby and blue. Our relationship, despite having romantically ended almost two years ago, has been riddled conflict and hostility. Still silently fuming over an angry e-mail he had sent me early that day, I sat down in our classroom to watch the second-half of the documentary. And despite the overly dramatized nature of the documentary, depicting a scene of Maines singing her heart out for the new album, the lyrics to the song she was singing, 'Not ready to make nice,' made me want to cry.

Forgive - sounds good
Forget - I'm not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I'm still waiting

Although the Dixie Chicks were obviously singing of their ordeal with the public outcry against them, I felt the song spoke to me, as portraying an ordeal many people go through with broken relationships, romantic or otherwise. Like Maines and her fellow Dixie Chicks, I was feeling frustrated and angry with hostilities and name-calling aimed towards me, simply because I had expressed how I felt. Instead of attempting to understand where I was coming from, or try and look at the situation from my shoes, my ex-partner wrote me off as an irrational bitch.

I really respected the Dixie Chicks' refusal to apologize for what they said or for feeling how they felt. Sure it seems corny to relate their experience with petty fights with my ex-boyfriend, but that's how the film and the music of the Dixie Chicks left their imprint on my life and identity.