Shut Up and Sing
Directed by Barbara Kopple & Cecilia Peck
How many times can celebrities insult President Bush and then complain that their freedom of speech is being questioned? The inability of celebrities to accept criticism is a theme that gets lost in Shut Up and Sing, the Dixie Chicks documentary that Barbara Kopple co-directed with Cecilia Peck.
Kopple, best known for the landmark documentaries Harlan County and American Dream—films from the era when documentaries had integrity—is expected to bring her wide-ranging, deeply humane social perception. She almost does here, taking what began as a Dixie Chicks promo into the complications that arose when the country-and-western trio spoke out against Bush’s Iraq War during a 2003 concert in London. As that story—and the Dixie Chicks’ infamy—got bigger, Kopple and Peck began to examine the politics of showbiz.
“At the end of the day, while you’re great musicians, you’re [also] a brand,” the group is informed by one of its handlers. Kopple and Peck try balancing issues of social principle and citizens’ rights with the imperatives of marketing. “This is good for our career,” one of the Dixie Chicks enthuses when controversy begins.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we had, like, [fans] burning CDs?” their manager wonders, naively, cravenly. It is to Kopple and Peck’s credit that as the public relations storm rages, the film focuses on the Dixie Chicks’ obstinance. There’s talk about courage and death threats, and lead-singer Natalie Maines doesn’t hide her loud-mouth arrogance; still, these commissioned filmmakers try maintaining truth by showing the price that is paid for audacity.
Dixie Chicks lost a large segment of its core country audience (as well as radio airplay and concert ticket sales). Kopple and Peck are stuck with the group’s sense of martyrdom. But another fascinating story hovers in the background about showbiz’s discomfort with principle—and about Dixie Chicks caught in the winds of media fashion, tangling free of cultural roots.
Kopple and Peck show the full visual record of Maines’ London statement: “We’re on the good side with y’all. We don’t want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.” Maines giggles at her own impudence and hunger for approval. Later, she admits, “It wasn’t a political statement, it was a joke made to get applause.” Keeping these cinema verité gems in mind, Shut Up and Sing inadvertently reveals how celebrities succumb to a social moment yet are shocked at the consequences. They’re not martyrs; they’re simply the Milli Vanilli of the post-9/11 era.
Maines complains about their newfound status as media darlings: “We were never gonna be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly or interviewed by Barbara Walters!” Too bad Kopple and Peck don’t then explore exactly who the members of the Dixie Chicks are as country artists, as Texas women, political animals. The crushing response of country radio stations that boycotted Dixie Chicks music reflects a my-country-right-or-wrong ethos that goes back to Merle Haggard and Bob Wills. We need to see Dixie Chicks’ relationship to this tradition.
Kopple and Peck can’t disguise what one DJ calls “a real contempt [for] what a lot of country listeners believe.” They’re privy to the production of the new album being shaped by non-traditional country artists like producer Rick Rubin and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. (“We’ll put the song through the Dixie Chicks filter whatever that will be,” Svengali Rubin advises.) But the film should go deeper into the Creative Artists Agency’s declaration: “We’re rebuilding a career with a new band.” We need to see more of the decision-making about taking Dixie Chicks further into the pop genre, seeking a new market with a high-fashion, including a VH1-ready music video by pop director Sophie Muller.
What made those EW cover girls go mainstream must go deeper than Bush-bashing; it signals a class shift in country culture. Their answer album, I’m Not Ready to Make Nice, is not down-home defiance; it’s arrogant pandering. Shut Up and Sing tracks Americans’ painful conflict over the Iraq War but misses the deep cultural scrutiny we need. It ends with Dixie Chicks in 2005 “returning to the scene of the crime,” and the applause of clueless Brits, where Maines reiterates “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is in Texas”—not a statement worth making.
