Oh my goodness, two features in one? What’s next, salt and vinegar potato chips? Jay-Z and Rihanna doing a song together? The mind boggles. Call it laziness or ingenuity, but I’ve decided to combine two weekly features into one consideration of a movie about music… kind of.

I finally got around to watching Shut Up and Sing, Barbara Kopple’s documentary about the Dixie Chicks and the uproar surrounding an offhand comment singer Natalie Maines made at a concert in 2003. Before I go into detail, I should mention that I was never really a Dixie Chicks fan - in fact they barely registered on my cultural radar before the whole “I’m ashamed George Bush is from Texas” debacle. But I am a huge fan of documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple - her 1976 doc Harlan County USA is one of the most astounding and heartbreaking films I’ve ever seen (and she made it when she was, like, 12. Okay, 22. But still). So I went into the film curious to see what she would do with a story about pop music, big hair, freedom of speech, and the polemic beast that is America today. Suffice it to say I was not disappointed.

The film is built around the aforementioned comment Natalie Maines made between songs at a concert in London, England - she expressed displeasure at US foreign policy, and then said “We’re ashamed that President Bush is from [our home territory] Texas,”. The fallout from the comment included hate mail, mass burnings of Dixie Chicks CDs (turns out CDs don’t burn so well, so we get to see lots of Middle American workboots stomping on them), radio boycotts, and even a death threat. Kopple’s deft editing and compiling of footage creates what is in fact a fascinating portrait of the media spin machine, and what exactly is meant by “free speech” and “patriotism” (and whether or not the two are in fact totally irreconcilable). There is the usual predictable and disturbing woman-hating, where the Chicks get called sluts and traitors, and several news commentators (guess which network - cough*fox*cough) suggest that what they really need is a good slapping around. You really get to see the opposite ends of the American political and cultural spectrum in all its gory glory. As one of the Chicks, Martie Maguire, sums up near the end of the film, “It had to be from us - it was perfect. It had to be the unlikely voice from what looked like the conservative heart of America.”

(more inside…)

Here’s a Film Fridays bonus. I get a lot of weird press releases: people who want Shameless to do stories on teen TV Hollywood stars and mommy-and-toddler toys. But the strange press release of the day goes to the makers of Women’s Studies: a horror B-movie coming soon to a movie theatre near you.

At first, I thought this might be fun: a largely female cast — it could be campy, subverting the traditional man-hunts-helpless-girls horror set up. Maybe this wasn’t just scream queens and blood-spattered prom dresses. Maybe this wasn’t the senseless misogynist violence of torture-porn movies like Captivity (see Stacey May’s excellent post about that one here). After all, Buffy was in the horror genre, right?

Nope, Women’s Studies looks more like “Feminism: the horror movie.” (I think the movie’s tagline, “Open your mind before it gets opened for you” is deeply hilarious.) Students at a girls-only college are indoctrinated with women’s studies, politics, media and genetics (so that women can reproduce without male chromosomes). Check out this description, straight from the Women’s Studies website (which, by the way, has the URL areyoualadykiller.com):

Mary soon discovers that Judith and the academy have a darker side: indoctrinating women into their apocalyptic sect and then sending them out into the world to strip men of power and status and enslave them. Slowly, Mary begins to realize that Judith and the cultists will do anything to fulfill their dogma … including murder.

The filmmakers seem to think that they have made something revolutionary and relevant. (See their hilariously bad documentary about why the movie is so edgy.) But it’s the same tired old stereotype of feminists as man-haters. And, of course, they all make out a lot. Ugh.

Well, I guess the press release was useful. I am getting the word out: don’t go see this film.

In the spirit of (my girlfriend) Kelly Clarkson:

“… I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can’t have any ideas on my own because I’m a female or that people from undeveloped countries can’t have ideas of their own unless it’s backed up by someone who’s blond-haired and blue-eyed. ”

-M.I.A on the way that she is portrayed in the US media, via Pitchfork

Given our firey discussion on marriage a little over a month ago, I thought I’d bring to your attention this interesting and enlightening piece by Jenny Block, in which she discusses her personal experiences in her open marriage, how it came to be and how it works for her:

I suppose open marriage works for us for precisely… because we talk about it, because it has opened us to one another. The learning curve certainly has been steep. We have absolutely, positively no models for what we’re doing. We’re really just the average couple next door. Really. We’ve just found that “owning” each other sexually doesn’t help our marriage. It only hurts it.

Particularily interesting are the reactions to the essay in the comments section: while some readers identify strongly and are thankful that she brings to light how “she made affairs the solution, not the problem,” others attack her, one going as far as to call the piece “a pathetic rationalization for adultery.”

Young continues the debate (perhaps in safer territory) over at Feministing.com, where she takes on the question of “What does an open marriage look like to you?” and tackles it from a more gendered (feminist) perspective. In the piece she brings up the fact that the responses to her original article were at times less than supportive:

I was curious about why people posted such vehement comments to my article after it ran, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all about fear. Fear and lack of models of open marriages that are working. My husband and I are happy. We’re both getting what we want and need and we’re together. We love each other. We’re good parents. We understand that we’re simply not built for monogamy.

We’ve been socially programmed to demand fidelity and are told at every turn that jealousy and ownership prove love. I don’t buy it. I’m guest blogging today to open up the conversation, because I want to know what readers think–specifically what feminists think–about marriage, cheating, and open relationships. What’s the deal with Happily Ever After anyways?

Block brings up some really interesting points around the subject of open marriage in a feminist-informed way, while wondering why those couples in open marriages rarely identify with the rest of the poly community. The article was particularily interesting to me because I’m currently reading Anne Kingston’s The Meaning of Wife which further examines these kinds of “fidelity/monogomy paradigms” and whether or not they are unnecessarily constrictive for some people.

(I know, I know, it’s pretty obvious that my partner and I are talking about getting married, given my current reading material, but please, let’s ignore that for the good of professionalism, okay?) Thoughts?

In the latest issue of Good Magazine there’s an article about Christie Hefner, chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises and daughter of Hugh. The piece is interesting for a variety of reasons, primarily because it explores Playboy’s lesser known activist side, revealing some surprising details: Playboy runs something called the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards, whose winners have included filmmaker Michael Moore, comedian Bill Maher and a high school student who successfully defended her right to form a gay/straight alliance at her Texas school. Other little known facts about the corporation that are revealed incude them filing an amicus brief in Roe v. Wade, and coming out strongly in favor of gay marriage. All very suprising, considering when we think Playboy (or porn in general,) we seem to generally jump right to “sexist,” or “exploitive.”

The “can porn be feminist?” question is not a new one, but the reason I bring up this article and Christie Hefner (who adamantly refers to herself as both a feminist and an activist) is because of a single (very controversial) quote in the article that rattled me more than a little bit, and that is relevent considering our recent discussion on what it means to call yourself a feminist:

“To say you’re not a feminist is virtually the same thing as saying you’re a racist.”

Woah. Really? Thoughts?

Thanks to everyone who voted for a Be Good cover.  I’m sure it comes as no shock that cover number one came out as the clear winner, and thankfully the end result is off to the printer!

You can still get your very own stylish Be Good 1” pin, absolutely free! Just email me your mailing details and while supplies last I’ll get one off to you in the mail asap!

This issue is currently a hot one out in blog-land so I thought I’d weigh in. Cosmopolitan magazine (a bastion of feminist values, I know) has an article this month called “A New Kind of Date Rape,” in which they define what they’re calling “Grey Rape,” an act that is “a kind of sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial.”

Via this article the author (Laura Session Stepp) makes the distinction between “gray rape cases” and “more clear-cut date rapes,” despite the fact that every woman cited in the article was clearly forced into sex (which is rape, duh!) This new definition of “sort-of-but-not-really-maybe-rape” is troubling because it further perpetuates a blaming of the victim and attempts to excuse a crime that is clearly a crime. In many ways, Cosmo is saying “it’s not rape if you agreed to make out,” “it’s not rape if you had a lot of alcohol,” or even better (worse,) “it’s not rape if you passed out.”

It’s not like I’m surpised Laura Session Stepp wrote this article, because she also wrote Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, where she first used the term. I’m not surprised but I’m still disgusted. Feministing had this to say:

(The term Grey Rape) creates a new category that suggests it’s not-quite-rape if you say “no” while drunk, or you say “no” to intercourse after you’ve said “yes” to making out. To not straight-up call it rape diminishes it and excuses it. It goes from a crime to simply impolite or bad behavior.

Thankfully there’s this: The NYC Media Response Project Letter Writing Campaign, “There’s No Such Thing as Grey Rape.” They’re calling it “a Call to Action against misinformation about rape spread by Cosmopolitan magazine in their September issue in an article called, A New Kind of Date Rape.” Here’s why they think you should get involved:

If this term gets popularized, particularly by the same political segment that attacked the documentation of acquaintance rape in the eighties, victims will be even less likely to come forward or seek help.

And I agree. So call Cosmo on their bullsh*t and email them at cosmo@hearst.com

Tired of going to hardcore shows only to catch a mohawk in the eye on the dancefloor, get other people’s crusty macho sweat on your fishnets, and feel alienated because you’re not male and/or straight? Never fear, Thundrah is here for you, like a big cozy noisy blanket. It’s loud, hard, jangly, queer, and heartfelt, with some tweaky electronic twiddling from Lisa Gambletron and sticks-a-flying drumming from ZZ Topless, as well as good-old-fashioned throat-tearing screams from singer and guitarist Mac and the world’s catchiest bassline courtesy of Stephen. Somehow it works as well for looking out your window at factory smokestacks as doing windmills on the dancefloor - and goodness knows any sensible youth needs both.

Thundrah’s currently on tour, and I think I’ve posted this too late for you Toronto kids to check out, but they hit Ottawa tonight and Montreal tomorrow. And their album, The City Swallows the Sparrow, is now available from Montreal’s Blue Skies Turn Black. They’re also on tour with California’s Mika Miko, who give me new hope for the L.A. DIY scene, and make me believe that we can make our dreams come true with gluesticks, a photocopier, some scissors and some sparkles, dammit. And okay, you might end up with sweat on your fishnets anyway. It’ll be worth it.

My pick for the week is a great documentary from last year called This Film is Not Yet Rated. The film looks at how movie ratings happen — whether a movie gets a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 label, and why. The difference in ratings is quite significant. An NC-17 film suffers from diminished advertising and distribution potential: dramatically fewer people will see, or even hear of movies that get the dreaded rating. And the factors that distinguish the R from NC-17 are much more disturbing than you’d think.

Ratings are decided by a secret panel at the MPAA made up of ordinary American parents. And here’s what they are determined to protect society from: female masturbation, female orgasm, a woman getting oral sex, non-missionary sex and gay sex. I mean, think of the children! (Actually, don’t — they wouldn’t be getting into R movies, anyway.)

Violence, on the other hand, is pretty OK in any form. So, in other words, if you’re a filmmaker, it’s easier to get away with having a woman get beaten up than having a woman get off. (more inside…)