A couple of months ago I had seen the documentary "Shut up and sing" on the Dixie Chicks. In 2003, at a concert in Sheppard's Bush, London, Nathalie Maines made a comment - "we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas" (the Dixie Chicks' home state) - that set forth a wave of controversy that resulted in a Nashville radio station boycott which took gigantic proportions.
In 2006, their album "Taking the long way" is their reaction and shows what the Dixie Chicks been through in those years, which must have been an emotional rollercoaster, I imagine.
to the left: The Dixie Chicks featured on the May 2, 2003 cover of Entertainment Weekly. Written on their bodies you can see all the critisizing words they've had thrown at them.
And I know that country music is maybe not to everybody's taste (but let's not debate that and open that can of worms), it is still pretty impressive and odd how a best selling female band in the US could get such a treatment for expressing their freedom of speech...
Being from the other side of the globe, and apparently have been unaware of the proportion of the reactions to the Chicks, I was a bit taken aback on how cruel people can be.
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4 comments:
Generally the liberals here in the States are very vocal and shout down any opposing opinion-- just look at the treatment of the current Miss California for saying she is against gay marriage. You'd have thought she said she eats children for lunch. Sarah Palin was branded an idiot and attacked horribly for daring to be Christian and pro-life.
The Dixie Chicks are unusual in that they were called out on their comments because usually anti-American sentiments expressed by artists are well tolerated. Most of Hollywood shares their opinions. The rub was the timing. They picked a very sensitive time to speak out on something people were feeling very strongly about and they chose to do it in front on a foreign audience which left many Americans feeling as if they were too cowardly to speak out in front of an audience that didn't share their sentiments (especially Texas, which tends to be very conservative). Country music is unusual in that it's not hard to find artists that have more conservative views, so they took more grief than they would have had they been a pop or rock band-- at least I think so.
Natalie Maines, the lead singer, is kind of known for being a loud mouth so I don't think people were predisposed to giving her any slack-- and the Dixie Chicks never backed-off from their statements, so I think a lot of people felt that made them fair game. Free speech isn't really free. If you're going to use a public platform to express your views then you better be ready to defend them--especially when you offend large groups of people. I'm not saying these women deserved to be treated viciously, but people in this country who don't share their views get treated worse than that every day.
I agree with you that if you speak out before an audience, on a platform as it were, especially on politics, you should be able to think about consequences and responsability. As an artist, you have a certain responsablitity to what you say or do, when people either look up to you or get influenced by you. Because being in the spotlight makes it also very easy to influence, whether you are doing it deliberately or not.
The things is also, I don't know if it was so in this case, that sometimes, in the heat of the moment, you can blurb something out which in hindsight is often regretted. Here they either had a choice to retract and appologize, to save their face and safe their career. Or back Nathalie, eventhough maybe she should have thought about the consequences, and show that eventhough they are musicians in a spotlight, they too are people with an opinion and views. Because it would have been easily so, that Nathalie's comments were not backed by the other Chicks, or their management. It endangered the whole band in one sweep.
And yes, free speech, it is something to be carefull with. It is easy to hide behind those words and not be responsable. There lies the danger as well.
I'm maybe naieve. I have a kind of diplomatic nature. People have different views. I don't agree at times as well, on politics or other items. And it can get heated as well. But what to me is unacceptable is to put people down for what they think or believe. Either you can convince them or make them understand your view on things, or you don't. But in the end, anyone is entitled to their believes and judgement. I'm not saying it is easy to be that tolerant all the time, when views differ hugely, but in the end, my diplomatic tendencies usually kick in.
To round this up: speaking out in public has to be thought through when you're a role model, especially if you risk to offend a large number of people in the process. But if you do make a mistake, you have to own up to it without loosing your principles or opinions in the end as well.
I do think people should be able to state an opinion without being subject to death threats-- that's flat-out wrong. I also feel bad for Nathalie's band-mates because they were put in a really tough position of more-or-less having to stand behind her or risk the integrity of the group and I'm sure they didn't want to do that. I'd also guess that they had expressed the same opinion to Maines in private, though I'd bet they weren't prepared for it to be announced in front of a live audience.
I do find that, as I get older, I'm a little intolerant to the public opinion of celebrities because there's a kind of hubris there that is totally unwarranted. Most celebrities are not experts in foreign affairs. They don't have experience in politics and they're getting their opinions from the liberal media outlets, which tends to be as ill-informed as their own. Truly, George Clooney has no business acting as a consultant on Darfur to Pres Obama, but that's exactly what he's doing. (I've worked with people who knew Clooney and they tell me the guy is nothing but an opportunistic oaf-- but that's another story).
I worked in Hollywood so I know how insular it is and how the liberal politics are reinforced within the group-think bubble that exists there. So it offends me when I see those opinions paraded on TV because they're not well informed and they do have an impact on public opinion. Most people I know are very reasonable and would never, ever act out against a celebrity they don't like. So while I can understand how people could get angry I think they do more harm than good to the debate when they threaten harm to those they disagree with.
Their opinions cost them a lot of fans. It shows that people need to think as to wether expressing an opinion on a touchy subject is the right thing to do.
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