When Kerri Koch realized her documentary Don't Need You clocked in at around forty-five minutes did she think that it was a quick and direct burst of energy like the songs from the Riot Grrl bands the film profiles? Maybe but it didn't feel like that to me. The thought I had when I saw the credits roll at the time most films are hitting their midway point was "that was it?" Documentaries don't depend on visual inventiveness like other types of film. I've seen plenty of fine documentaries done with RadioShack-bought DV cameras and FinalCut Pro. What they depend on is how much information the filmmakers have gathered about a subject and how they communicate it to the audience. When encountering documentaries the part of my brain that appreciates films rarely turns on. Instead I start to use the same mental muscles I use when I edit a piece of journalism. The two biggest questions are "why should we care about the subject matter?" and "does the piece get really in-depth about the subject matter?" Koch is clearing putting a lot of energy trying answer the first question but since she fails at answering the second it hurts her original intention.
Koch didn't really need to do too much to convince me about what was great about the Riot Grrrl movement. The most important band of that brief period was Bikini Kill. As soon as I hear The Singles I absolutely fell in love with the band. It now sounds odd, considering the politics going on at the time, but to my fourteen-year-old self Kathleen Hannah's voice was just about the sexiest thing I had ever encountered. To some of of the feminist theorists interested in Bikini Kill that might have looked like a problem. Why, when coming across this music with origins decidedly from a female perspective, must I immediately think of it in sexual terms? All I can really say is that the sexual feelings the music created in me (and still does) only made me think of it as better than most of the other punk rock bands I was listening to at the time. I was very familiar with DIY punk rock music, my favorite band at that point was probably Operation Ivy, but they only inspired feelings that teens usually want from rock 'n' roll, namely that escape from a boring suburban life. Bikini Kill had all that plus they talked about "wip[ing] our cum on our parent's bed." The lustful thoughts planted in my brain by their sound did not make me think less of the three women and one man in the band as musicians. Their music rocked just as much as anything else I listened to but it also sent me into a dreamy haze like nothing before. As far as I was concerned they were only an improvement on what had come before.
At that time I loved a lot of bands with hard political messages (Rage Against the Machine was another favorite at the time). I would try to read as much about these bands as I could but their philosophies didn't make much sense to me. I can't fault the bands here, though. I was a kid in high school for chrissakes! Even after a teacher made my psychology class watch Manufacturing Consent, the documentary on Noam Chomsky, I was in no shape to either digest or create any reasonable political thoughts. I could only pretend I knew what the Hell I was talking about by dropping a few important names and terms. Now that I'm a bit more socially aware I look at the ideas behind the Riot Grrrl movements admirable but often times confused (and then I'm reminded that a lot of the women in the movement were only just out of or still in high school for chrissakes). From the interviews with Hannah, Allison Wolfe from Bratmobile and others a lot of the Riot Grrrls seemed to spend a lot of time in crowded rooms arguing. This happens in poltical discussions all the time but it seemed the only things people could agreed on were the general ideas of bringing in feminist opinions to punk rock. The whole idea of punk rock was that there was no line between band and audience but in the 1980's hardcore scene that only seemed relevant to young men. Women were often seen as "coat racks" while their boyfriends entered the mosh pit. Everyone agreed that part of "Revolution Girl Style Now!" should be that women could be a legitimate part of creating underground rock 'n' roll. But when it came to how that music should be represented or the what the race and class make-up of the Riot Grrrl movement was that only seemed to lead to never-ending bickering. The worst example is when Ian MacKaye says he got flack for writing and performing the Fugazi song "Suggestion," with its lyrics such as "is my body the only trait in the eye's of men?" MacKaye thinks that those who feel that he had no right singing such lyrics can plainly fuck off.
I get the sense that Riot Grrrl wasn't a case of a new philosophy springing out of subculture. This was an older philosophy, one crafted in part by Gloria Steinem, whom a young Hannah saw speak in Washington D.C., used to transform an established subculture. It succeeded by the time Olympia hosted the International Pop Underground Convention in 1991. With Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, 7 Year Bitch and other bands performing it was clear that rock 'n' roll in the Pacific Northwest was taking major steps towards equality. It was at that time that the rest of the United States was looking at the Pacific Northwest with great intensity thanks to the so-called Grunge movement led by Nirvana, a band very close to Bikini Kill. It's been written about in many places but the best known anecdote is that since Kurt Cobain was dating bassist Tobi Vail and Vail preferred the deodorant Teen Spirit Hannah wrote "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on Cobain's wall. This was one of the many reasons the national media placed the microscope on musicians who never thought they'd be known to anyone outside of those who subscribed to the Sub Pop singles club. Being the biggest Riot Grrrl band Bikini Kill also became the biggest victim of the media exposure. They lost their identities to journalists who refused to challenge their way of thinking to what the band was saying. It's no wonder why the band broke up in 1998, except maybe why it didn't happen sooner. The band hadn't made enemies with each other. They had made enemies with the outside world.
The film succinctly profiles that rise and fall of Riot Grrrl. You get some good insights from the interview subjects but there was so much more that could be examined and increase the film past its truncated running time. What about the bands outside of the Pacific Northwest who were tagged with the Riot Grrrl label. Where was L7 and PJ Harvey? Those artists might had a similar aggressive sound but the politics were different. What about Ani DiFranco, whose politics were similar but whose sound was quite different? One thing I wanted to know was what Bikini Kill guitarist Billy Karren felt being a man right in the middle of this. Watching the extra interview footage included on the DVD I was mesmerized by the harrowing stories Hannah had about the reaction Bikini Kill got on tour. The violence they saw no band had had to deal with since The Sex Pistols in 1977. It made me think that perhaps Koch should have created a documentary on Bikini Kill. There her film could have a real focus while at the same time straying into many interesting areas. The footage of the band performing Rebel Girl at the same show as the clip above made realize that the in-fighting and media hype didn't matter. It was the power these four could create mixing politics and music that remains so vital. Permanent Link: 9:07 PM |
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Comments:
There's a great deal of insight here, Ian. I'm really glad I subscribed. I have a little crush on Kathleen Hanna myself and feel ashamed because it feels like I'm going against everything she stands for :) It's a really interesting subject for a film because it was such a short period of time that it existed for. Even shorter than the first wave of punk?
# posted by AaronM : 9:04 AM
Well, when was the first wave of punk? Was it in Detroit with the MC5 and The Stooges? Was it in New York with the Ramones and Blondie?
Most people classify the first wave of punk with England in 1977 with The Sex Pistols and The Clash because that's the first time everyone involved was solidly aware what "punk" was and what was happening. That works for me.
One of my favorite books, about music and at all, is Jon Savage's England's Dreaming. He throughly examines the movement and to him things really started in 1977 and were already floundering by 1978. Reading the book it's amazing how fast everything happened (I think the same thing when looking at the '60s. The difference between what was coming out in 1966 and 1967 is staggering).
Riot Grrrl and really the entire Pacific Northwest scene felt like a tight social group that was corrupted by media exposure. This is explored in a much better film named Hype!. Would it have ended so soon without TV cameras descending upon foggy towns? Probably. It would have certainly have transformed into something else fairly soon. What can I say, people get bored quickly.
# posted by Ian : 7:10 PM
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