The Righteous Babes

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In this accomplished documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Pratibha Parmar (A PLACE OF RAGE, WARRIOR MARKS) explores the intersection of feminism with popular music, focusing on the role of female recording artists in the 1990s and their influence on modern women. Parmar argues that, far from being dead, feminism has thrived and expanded its reach through the direct, aggressive, and revolutionary medium of rock music, and through the role models of performers like Madonna and Ani DiFranco. Intercutting performance footage with interviews, Parmar explores her thesis with some of the most outspoken female musicians, feminist theorists, and journalists of the UK and US, including Sinead O’Connor, Skin (Skunk Anansie), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Camille Paglia, and Gloria Steinem. THE RIGHTEOUS BABES offers a searing and timely critique of the commercialization of feminism through 'Girl Power' Spice Girls style, ditzy Ally McBeal and her trans-Atlantic counterpart, Bridget Jones. With critical insight and candidness, this powerful and timely documentary demonstrates the vibrancy and relevance of feminism to women and young girls today. Essential viewing for feminists, post-feminists and anti-feminists alike.
“The righteous rage of The Righteous Babes tears the cobwebs off feminism: these fierce rock divas roll it out of the libraries and into packed concert halls. A sexy, invigorating must-see...”
Patricia R. Zimmermann Ithaca College
“Move over Spice Girls. Fast-paced, wryly observed, insightful, The Righteous Babes demolishes the “post” in “post-feminism.” In this video, popular culture — rock music — rather than marking the end of feminism through the commodification and containment of its revolutionary promise, instead emerges as a vital and contested ground of feminism’s on-going possibilities.”
Ann Pellegrini English and Women’s Studies, Harvard University
Citation
Main credits
Parmar, Pratibha (film director)
Parmar, Pratibha (film producer)
L'Anson, Lisa (narrator)
Other credits
Film editor, James Gold.
Distributor subjects
Documentary Films; Music; Performance ArtKeywords
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♪ I want to be the girl with the most cake ♪
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- Girls are supposed to want to sleep with the band,
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they\'re not supposed to want to be the band.
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Yeah, I grew up wanting to be Madonna or one of Bananarama,
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but it wasn\'t gonna happen.
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It really wasn\'t gonna happen,
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but you know, I could be in Kenickie, so I am.
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♪ And someday you will ache like I ache ♪
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- Over the years of when I was being you know, controversial
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they would often come out with this phrase,
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\"Oh, she should just shut up and sing.\"
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And I was always thinking, how can you shut up and sing?
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You can\'t physically do it, do you know what I mean?
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It\'s an oxymoron or whatever you call it.
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♪ Someday you will ache like I ache ♪
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- You know as all girls do, when you start masturbating,
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you think your hands are gonna fall off,
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and that was my worst fear
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because as a piano player it\'s like,
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oh no, if it\'s between masturbating and playing the piano,
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it is a tough decision actually.
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♪ You\'re strange, insane ♪
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♪ One thing you can never change ♪
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♪ It\'s a crack, I\'m back ♪
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♪ Yeah I\'m standing on the rooftops ♪
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♪ Shouting out baby I\'m ready to go ♪
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- [Narrator] Female stars have turned
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the traditionally male world of rock inside out.
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Bold, ballsy, and loud,
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their sexuality is their strength and not their weakness.
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They show passion and aggression, rage and vulnerability.
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♪ I\'m ready to go ♪
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- [Narrator] They\'re on the cutting edge,
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transforming what it means to be female in the \'90s.
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♪ Shout it out ♪
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- [Narrator] Hearing them sing and seeing them onscreen
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trashes the idea that women
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are to be kept sweet, softly spoken, and firmly backstage.
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(energetic rock music)
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These women show that feminism
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is still an urgent and vibrant force,
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only theirs is a new kind of feminism.
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- More than owing a debt to the feminist movement,
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I think women in rock feel like they\'re carrying the torch,
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and that\'s their responsibility,
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to sort of push the new frontiers
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of what it means to be a feminist,
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what it means to change the rules,
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what it means to take yourself seriously,
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what it means to do things for yourself
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and for other women on your own terms.
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- One of the most important things
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I think in talking about rock and roll today,
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and talk abut pop music and pop culture today,
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is how it is so intensely commodified
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and blown completely out of proportion via the media
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in ways that makes it almost inescapable in daily life.
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To that extent if you ask me,
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it becomes more important than ever
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that feminism be a part of that.
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- I think feminism in the past has been seen very much
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as something that was confined to a particular ghetto,
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a women\'s liberation movement.
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I think that now, feminism has really cracked open
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and is out in the mainstream.
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- It is very, very true
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that early feminism was very text driven,
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that there were all kinds of theoretical and polemicists,
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that people had to read and keep up on.
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Now all of that has been translated
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into the form of movies and popular entertainment,
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so I think that the persona that we do get
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in rock and roll should concern feminists.
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That will be the only, the primary means,
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by which young women get the feminist message.
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♪ Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A ♪
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♪ Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A ♪
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♪ Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A ♪
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- [Narrator] The forerunners of today\'s rock women,
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knew how hold a crowd spellbound,
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and they did it with passion and attitude.
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- There is not a single woman in rock today
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who is equal to Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders,
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that is a tough broad.
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♪ I see him standing silhouetted in the lamplight ♪
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♪ I cross the street and I quicken my pace ♪
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- Chrissie Hynde was running a band full of men.
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Now, she is a tough chick.
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For me, she is one of the ultimate role models
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for the aspiring woman rock musician.
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- There weren\'t a lot of women in music before I came along.
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There\'s always been women,
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and there\'s certainly in jazz
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there was always women singers who certainly had the guts,
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and the chutzpah and everything else
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that all rock women have.
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♪ Just looking for a change ♪
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- [Narrator] Now female artists are everywhere,
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not just singing compliant songs of love lost and longing,
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but also blasting out tales of defiance and sexual revenge.
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It is the white heat of their energy
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that fuels a new female revolution.
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- I think rock music is an excellent form for any
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political, sexual,
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whatever agenda, because it is so direct,
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and it is by nature revolutionary.
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It was born of trouble.
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It was born of the urge to change.
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♪ You\'re buying this, you\'re buying that now ♪
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♪ You\'re wishing all the money in the world belonged to you ♪
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♪ You\'re crucified upon your own cross now ♪
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♪ You\'re giving money to the white men in the white limo ♪
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The rock music definitely has got like a edge to it.
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It\'s the music that you can be very energetic
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and very diverse, and very emotional at the same time
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as being very angry and aggressive and very powerful.
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♪ Steal me, deal me, anyway you heal me ♪
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♪ Maim me, tame me, you can never change me ♪
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When I started singing, I got a lot of attention
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because I was very aggressive and very strident,
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and you know, people liked that.
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♪ Love me, like me, come ahead and fight me ♪
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♪ Please me, tease me, go ahead and leave me ♪
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- Feminism itself has freed the talents of women
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who are rock musicians and artists and pop culture heroes.
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It\'s accessible, and it\'s much more populist,
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and has a much greater reach,
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and it also has much more diversity,
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and joy and outrageousness in it.
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♪ I see you on the street and you walk on by ♪
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♪ You make me want to hang my head down and cry ♪
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- For at least 20 years and more,
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you had a cleavage between rock and roll
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and mainstream feminism that has only now been healed,
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thanks to Madonna having closed the gap.
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♪ I\'ve had to work much harder than this ♪
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♪ For something I want, don\'t try to resist me ♪
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- Madonna for like our generation
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is just one of these constant things that has been there
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since we were really quite small.
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For people, like we\'re 19.
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I still wanted to be Madonna.
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You know, I had lacy gloves.
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You know? (laughing)
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And I still sort of do want to be Madonna a bit.
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♪ Open your heart, I\'ll make you love me ♪
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- Madonna is a towering monument
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to possibility and self-determination.
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She did it all.
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She was able to change, manipulate, create,
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different images of herself with total control.
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♪ What are you gonna do ♪
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- What Madonna showed, and this is why
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she had so many tens of thousands of wannabes,
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is that it\'s possible for a woman to be highly sexual
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and flirtatious with men and still say no.
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♪ I want to run naked in a rainstorm ♪
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- [Victoria] The ways in which women have been able
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to make the most advancement in rock and roll as feminists
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is to almost bury their sexuality,
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and Madonna has done the opposite.
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She flaunts her sexuality.
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♪ So now what ♪
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- For me that\'s very exciting,
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because I don\'t enjoy a feminism
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in which I have to you know, cover up a part of myself.
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♪ Waiting ♪
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♪ For you to justify my love ♪
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♪ Yearning, burning ♪
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♪ For you to justify my love ♪
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- [Narrator] Madonna makes the bra burning outrageousness
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of early women\'s liberation
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with her own fearless in your face sexuality.
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Her unashamed sexual expression and complete control
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over her own image marked her out as a rebel babe.
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♪ I\'m only just coming to life ♪
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♪ Woman ♪
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♪ This is a woman\'s world ♪
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♪ This is my world ♪
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♪ Woman ♪
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♪ That can\'t deliver love ♪
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- [Narrator] While Madonna\'s get ahead attitude
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gathered speed, other female artists began
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to tackle the darker, more brutal side of women\'s lives.
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Their songs spoke fiercely
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about domestic violence, sexual abuse, and rape.
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(\"Woman\" by Neneh Cherry)
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- For the women who started the feminist movement,
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it is a dream come true for a woman musician
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to write a song about her own rape experience,
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which has the potential to reach millions of young girls
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and validate whatever experiences they\'ve had.
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♪ Yes I wore a slinky red thing ♪
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♪ Does that mean ♪
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♪ I should spread for you, your friends ♪
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♪ Your father, Mr. Ed ♪
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♪ Me and a gun ♪
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♪ And a man on my back ♪
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♪ But I haven\'t seen Barbados ♪
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♪ So I must get out of this ♪
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♪ I know ♪
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Me and a Gun was based on a personal experience,
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and it\'s a song about surviving a rape.
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I got so many letters from that and still do.
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- When she wrote a song about her own rape experience,
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and then became a focal point for hundreds of thousands
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of young women who had not had their experiences validated
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who came forward with their experiences and told her,
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she used her celebrity and her commercial success
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to get her record label to finance a national rape hotline.
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And up until that point,
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there hadn\'t been such a thing in the US, which is shocking.
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♪ These things go through your head ♪
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♪ When there\'s a man on your back ♪
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♪ You\'re pushed flat on your stomach ♪
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♪ It\'s not a classic Cadillac ♪
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♪ Me and a gun ♪
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♪ And a man ♪
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- If you\'ve got pornography saturating your environment,
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it\'s making it impossible for women
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to live in that environment.
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It\'s creating aggression against women,
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and bigotry against women.
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When women are devalued in these ways,
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it\'s easier to hit women.
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It\'s easier to rape women.
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I don\'t think that the brutality
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against women can be overstated.
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It\'s very hard to count,
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but we\'re talking about anywhere from a third to a half
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of US women having been battered in a marriage.
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We\'re talking about one in three women being raped.
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We\'re talking about you know,
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staggeringly high amounts of physical sexual violence.
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♪ Tell me what\'s right ♪
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♪ Is it my right ♪
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♪ To be on my stomach of Fred\'s Seville ♪
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I don\'t know if I\'ll play Me and a Gun now at every concert,
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because something has really shifted for me,
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and where I am now
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I feel like we have honored
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that screaming voice that needed to be heard.
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Now it\'s time to honor some other voices.
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♪ People talk about my image ♪
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♪ Like I come into dimensions ♪
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♪ Like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind ♪
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♪ Like what I happen to be wearing ♪
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♪ The day that someone takes a picture ♪
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♪ Is my new statement for all of womankind ♪
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I haven\'t really brought feminism to my music consciously.
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It\'s just, I\'m a woman, you know?
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And I live in the world, so when I write
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I think that my gender informs
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what I see and what I say about it then.
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So I think you know, as sort of almost by nature
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my work is feminist.
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♪ I was 11 years old ♪
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♪ He was as old as my dad ♪
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♪ And he took something from me ♪
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♪ I didn\'t even know that I had ♪
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♪ So don\'t tell me about decency ♪
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♪ Don\'t tell me about pride ♪
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♪ Just give me something for my trouble ♪
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♪ \'Cause this time it\'s not a free ride ♪
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♪ Yeah I just wanna take the money I make ♪
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- Ani DiFranco is the next generation.
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I mean, she\'s carried it further,
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not only in doing her own songs and her own lyrics,
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but also her own record company
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and making sure its employment policies reflect her politics
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and give work to people in her own community
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in upstate New York.
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I mean, she\'s like a one person growth industry there,
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and she\'s done it in a very principled, consistent way.
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- It\'s very good that her fans hear
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that she acknowledges feminism,
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and that she considers herself a feminist,
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and that these issues are important to her
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and that you\'ve got to continue to assert them.
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- She\'s got a lot to say about women
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and just about life in general, and experience.
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- And it\'s so personal,
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like every time you hear one of her songs,
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I could totally relate it back to my own life.
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- She\'s about empowerment and respecting yourself,
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and like, you know being who you are.
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- She talks about what she believes in.
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- Yeah.
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- I mean, she talks about women\'s rights,
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capital punishment, homeless people, bisexual people.
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- I talk about the issue of abortion,
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or the issue of you know, queer sexuality,
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or the issue of menstruation,
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but to me they\'re not issues, you know?
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To me, it\'s my life.
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♪ Maybe I\'ll live my whole life just getting by ♪
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♪ Maybe I\'ll be discovered, maybe I\'ll be colonized ♪
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♪ You could try to train me like a pet ♪
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♪ You could try to teach me to beg ♪
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♪ But I\'ll tell you that I haven\'t learned it yet ♪
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♪ You know I ain\'t gonna sit, I ain\'t gonna stay ♪
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When I first started to get out there, people thought,
16:16.850 --> 16:19.251
oh, militant, angry, hairy,
16:19.251 --> 16:22.668
puppy eating, man hating feminist, yikes.
16:23.623 --> 16:25.357
♪ Feel free to listen ♪
16:25.357 --> 16:28.638
♪ Yeah, feel free to stare ♪
16:28.638 --> 16:30.218
Now it\'s really different.
16:30.218 --> 16:31.900
You know again, the industry hype
16:31.900 --> 16:34.081
of women in rock, chick singers,
16:34.081 --> 16:37.489
a lot of female informed rock music out there,
16:37.489 --> 16:39.272
and people are getting more used to the idea
16:39.272 --> 16:41.755
of a girl with a big mouth.
16:41.755 --> 16:46.755
♪ Fire ♪
16:46.830 --> 16:48.346
♪ Fire ♪
16:48.346 --> 16:49.547
- [Narrator] These days it\'s not unusual
16:49.547 --> 16:51.592
for female rock stars to express
16:51.592 --> 16:54.082
personal trauma in their songs.
16:54.082 --> 16:57.853
They don\'t just talk about their rage, they scream it out.
16:57.853 --> 17:01.936
♪ She\'s taken everything I liked ♪
17:03.654 --> 17:06.254
There are a lot of people who imitate rage.
17:06.254 --> 17:08.809
You know, it\'s very easy to get up with an electric guitar
17:08.809 --> 17:09.886
and pretend you\'re really angry,
17:09.886 --> 17:11.519
but there are very few people
17:11.519 --> 17:14.782
who actually were really coming from a furnace
17:14.782 --> 17:18.970
which had driven them into the public arena, you know?
17:18.970 --> 17:21.342
I think I\'m definitely one of those.
17:21.342 --> 17:25.592
♪ I watched her torturing my child ♪
17:29.711 --> 17:32.667
My experience of child abuse growing up,
17:32.667 --> 17:35.809
that was the furnace that drove me into the public arena,
17:35.809 --> 17:39.382
so that was very much what I was writing about.
17:39.382 --> 17:42.475
- As a musician, as a singer, as a performer,
17:42.475 --> 17:44.853
I think Sinead O\'Connor is luminous.
17:44.853 --> 17:46.188
♪ Fire ♪
17:46.188 --> 17:49.188
- She speaks her mind and her heart,
17:50.470 --> 17:53.125
and when she was talking about the degree to which
17:53.125 --> 17:56.680
the Catholic church has been complicit in child abuse
17:56.680 --> 17:58.615
and tore up the photograph of the Pope
17:58.615 --> 18:00.796
as a protest on television,
18:00.796 --> 18:05.395
she was gonna get a terrific amount of punishment.
18:05.395 --> 18:07.763
So I wrote her a fan letter telling her
18:07.763 --> 18:10.680
how much I appreciated her protest.
18:11.553 --> 18:12.492
- If you stand up,
18:12.492 --> 18:14.257
depending on what it is you\'re standing up for,
18:14.257 --> 18:16.426
you have to prepared to have the shit kicked out of you.
18:16.426 --> 18:18.475
You know, and I mean I did go through
18:18.475 --> 18:21.375
some years of being very, very brutalized.
18:21.375 --> 18:24.158
- Ladies and gentlemen, Sinead O\'Connor.
18:24.158 --> 18:27.158
(audience cheering)
18:28.064 --> 18:30.897
(audience booing)
18:38.735 --> 18:39.735
- Thank you.
19:09.312 --> 19:11.467
Okay, turn this up.
19:11.467 --> 19:14.419
♪ Until the philosophy ♪
19:14.419 --> 19:19.419
♪ Which holds one race superior and another inferior ♪
19:21.339 --> 19:26.137
♪ Is finally and permanently ♪
19:26.137 --> 19:29.988
♪ Discredited and abandoned ♪
19:29.988 --> 19:33.949
♪ Everywhere is war ♪
19:33.949 --> 19:38.314
♪ Until there\'s no longer first class ♪
19:38.314 --> 19:42.906
♪ Or second class citizens of any nation ♪
19:42.906 --> 19:45.726
♪ I\'ve got to say war ♪
19:45.726 --> 19:50.490
♪ And until the ignoble and unhappy regime ♪
19:50.490 --> 19:52.994
♪ Which holds all of us true ♪
19:52.994 --> 19:55.466
♪ Child abuse, yeah ♪
19:55.466 --> 19:58.605
♪ Child abuse, yeah ♪
19:58.605 --> 20:03.605
♪ Subhuman bondage has been toppled ♪
20:03.830 --> 20:06.485
♪ Utterly destroyed ♪
20:06.485 --> 20:09.708
♪ Everywhere is war ♪
20:09.708 --> 20:12.708
(audience cheering)
20:16.603 --> 20:19.201
- Sinead O\'Connor\'s a great rock and roll personality,
20:19.201 --> 20:21.205
and I don\'t even think what she does is rock and roll,
20:21.205 --> 20:25.455
but as a personality, she out rocks the rest of them
20:25.455 --> 20:29.304
with her sheer fierce unpredictability.
20:29.304 --> 20:31.222
- In one\'s 20s, one\'s a fighter anyway.
20:31.222 --> 20:33.107
You wanna fight your father and your mother,
20:33.107 --> 20:35.737
and the government and fuckin\' everybody, you know?
20:35.737 --> 20:36.908
But then you get a bit older
20:36.908 --> 20:39.106
you get hopefully a bit of wisdom and you understand.
20:39.106 --> 20:42.105
I now understand that while I don\'t,
20:42.105 --> 20:44.513
while I really admire and respect myself
20:44.513 --> 20:45.652
or the things that I did,
20:45.652 --> 20:48.519
I now understand the power of music,
20:48.519 --> 20:49.874
that I can put it into the music
20:49.874 --> 20:52.279
rather than be this kind of open wound
20:52.279 --> 20:54.239
running around the world, do you know what I mean?
20:54.239 --> 20:55.447
That actually if I whisper,
20:55.447 --> 20:56.534
there\'s a lot more power in that
20:56.534 --> 20:58.882
than there is in shouting, do you know?
20:58.882 --> 21:03.882
♪ Thank you for hearing me ♪
21:04.652 --> 21:09.652
♪ Thank you for hearing me ♪
21:10.484 --> 21:15.484
♪ Thank you for hearing me ♪
21:16.527 --> 21:20.110
♪ Thank you for hearing me ♪
21:24.904 --> 21:28.251
(\"Supermodel\" by The Juliana Hatfield Three)
21:28.251 --> 21:32.352
♪ The highest paid piece of ass ♪
21:32.352 --> 21:37.160
♪ You know it\'s not gonna last ♪
21:37.160 --> 21:41.927
♪ Those magazines end up in the trash ♪
21:41.927 --> 21:44.218
- [Narrator] In a world of relentless marketing,
21:44.218 --> 21:47.047
media hype, and ruthless image promotion,
21:47.047 --> 21:51.119
women\'s self-assertion has become a marketable commodity.
21:51.119 --> 21:52.913
Record companies have been quick
21:52.913 --> 21:56.254
to see the profit potential of women\'s aspiration,
21:56.254 --> 22:00.958
as they cash in on empty slogans of female power.
22:00.958 --> 22:02.148
♪ Yo, I\'ll tell you what I want ♪
22:02.148 --> 22:03.267
♪ What I really, really want ♪
22:03.267 --> 22:04.243
♪ So tell me what you want ♪
22:04.243 --> 22:05.705
♪ What you really, really want ♪
22:05.705 --> 22:07.353
- [Narrator] Today the Spice Girls
22:07.353 --> 22:10.176
peddle girl power like a soft drink.
22:10.176 --> 22:12.972
Their brand of flighty feminism is being sold
22:12.972 --> 22:17.722
as glamor, glitz, and image to preteen and teenage girls.
22:18.659 --> 22:19.777
- There are about a million things
22:19.777 --> 22:22.695
that I like about the Spice Girls.
22:22.695 --> 22:24.397
First of all the fact that they brought attention
22:24.397 --> 22:26.312
back to really young girls,
22:26.312 --> 22:28.800
instead of always the attention being
22:28.800 --> 22:31.768
on like 30 year old women and their trials in the home,
22:31.768 --> 22:35.018
and real women like who are struggling.
22:36.133 --> 22:37.158
I think that for girls
22:37.158 --> 22:39.921
to interested in feminism and inspired by it
22:39.921 --> 22:42.070
has to be about really large,
22:42.070 --> 22:43.905
kind of glamorous beautiful things,
22:43.905 --> 22:45.151
which the Spice Girls are.
22:45.151 --> 22:47.068
They\'re just a miracle.
22:48.508 --> 22:53.508
♪ Love is blind as far as the eye can see ♪
22:53.749 --> 22:54.896
- But it does seem that the Spice Girls
22:54.896 --> 22:56.612
just believed in themselves,
22:56.612 --> 22:59.251
had this amazing confident, walked all over everyone
22:59.251 --> 23:01.270
and then the next week they were earning $8 million
23:01.270 --> 23:03.511
or whatever and they were on the cover of everything
23:03.511 --> 23:04.933
and they had taken over the world.
23:04.933 --> 23:07.098
- And it\'s cool.
23:07.098 --> 23:12.098
♪ Do you still remember how we used to be ♪
23:12.177 --> 23:13.628
- [Narrator] With their cut price glamor
23:13.628 --> 23:15.914
and girl gang next door attitude,
23:15.914 --> 23:17.617
the Spice Girls are more about
23:17.617 --> 23:21.403
product sponsorship than liberation.
23:21.403 --> 23:23.051
Their relentless girl power slogan
23:23.051 --> 23:25.621
was nothing more than a marketing device,
23:25.621 --> 23:29.757
bought and sold by record company suits.
23:29.757 --> 23:32.485
Girl power Spice Girl style is cartoonish
23:32.485 --> 23:34.520
and does little more than dare girls
23:34.520 --> 23:38.770
to pierce their tongues and throw a few high kicks.
23:40.301 --> 23:43.614
- In the beginning, the whole Spice Girls, girl power thing
23:43.614 --> 23:46.863
looked like the apocalypse to me. (laughs)
23:46.863 --> 23:49.776
You know, it just, I thought this is it.
23:49.776 --> 23:54.747
This is where the life gets sucked out of feminism
23:54.747 --> 23:57.920
and it becomes a meaningless bumper sticker.
23:57.920 --> 24:00.093
♪ Both of us were dreamers ♪
24:00.093 --> 24:03.117
♪ Young love in the sun ♪
24:03.117 --> 24:04.930
- The Spice Girls are supposedly looked on
24:04.930 --> 24:07.374
as being this model of feminism, you know,
24:07.374 --> 24:09.368
and actually it\'s completely the opposite
24:09.368 --> 24:10.467
to the model of feminism.
24:10.467 --> 24:11.582
Not that I think there\'s anything wrong
24:11.582 --> 24:13.069
with wandering around half naked,
24:13.069 --> 24:15.936
but it would be wonderful if the world was a safe place
24:15.936 --> 24:17.999
and we could all do that, but it isn\'t.
24:17.999 --> 24:21.049
♪ Taking is too easy, but that\'s the way it is ♪
24:21.049 --> 24:21.887
- [Sinead] It\'s weird that they choose
24:21.887 --> 24:23.507
the word girl, I think also.
24:23.507 --> 24:25.662
You know, why don\'t they choose the word woman?
24:25.662 --> 24:27.690
But there\'s a certain kind of almost,
24:27.690 --> 24:29.596
the Baby Spice thing I think is quite sick.
24:29.596 --> 24:32.070
In a lot of ways it\'s quite kind of pedophile-y.
24:32.070 --> 24:33.339
♪ Don\'t be hasty ♪
24:33.339 --> 24:34.172
- If they are role models,
24:34.172 --> 24:35.890
then the girls watching them think,
24:35.890 --> 24:37.090
okay, well if I take all my clothes off
24:37.090 --> 24:38.824
and I undress like this and I dress like that,
24:38.824 --> 24:42.600
well, then I\'ll get some rich footballer to marry me.
24:42.600 --> 24:47.600
♪ Something fine, built to last ♪
24:48.062 --> 24:49.725
♪ Slipped up there ♪
24:49.725 --> 24:54.725
♪ I guess we\'re running out of time too fast ♪
24:55.179 --> 24:57.394
- They\'re sexual teases,
24:57.394 --> 25:02.394
and they have this manipulative way of using their sexuality
25:02.834 --> 25:06.751
to at least at that moment, decrease hostility,
25:07.656 --> 25:09.687
from men in particular,
25:09.687 --> 25:11.687
which makes them kind of
25:14.020 --> 25:15.850
the great male wet dream.
25:15.850 --> 25:17.289
♪ I wanna, ha, I wanna, ha ♪
25:17.289 --> 25:18.335
♪ I wanna, ha, I wanna, ha ♪
25:18.335 --> 25:20.481
♪ I wanna really, really, really wanna zig-a-zig ah ♪
25:20.481 --> 25:25.136
- I don\'t see how wearing a bra and your knickers
25:25.136 --> 25:28.658
on a front cover of a magazine with your breasts stuck up,
25:28.658 --> 25:32.004
with your WonderBra holding up a peace sign and a pout,
25:32.004 --> 25:36.564
is anything to do female equality or like anything to do
25:36.564 --> 25:40.896
with moving the cause of female equality forward.
25:40.896 --> 25:43.762
- To claim that they\'re kind of inventors of girl power
25:43.762 --> 25:45.258
is completely a joke.
25:45.258 --> 25:47.406
I mean, you know I would say that the mother of God
25:47.406 --> 25:49.215
is the first fucking feminist, do you know what I mean?
25:49.215 --> 25:51.703
The first girl power woman, you know?
25:51.703 --> 25:54.000
So there\'s always been woman power.
25:54.000 --> 25:55.507
- The whole thing absolutely disgusts me,
25:55.507 --> 25:57.453
\'cause for me it\'s nothing to do with girl power.
25:57.453 --> 25:59.620
To me it\'s about you know,
26:01.695 --> 26:02.952
equality.
26:02.952 --> 26:06.577
I have no desire to have a female run world.
26:06.577 --> 26:08.705
I think that would be equally as scary.
26:08.705 --> 26:10.414
♪ If you wanna be my lover ♪
26:10.414 --> 26:13.224
♪ You gotta get with my friends ♪
26:13.224 --> 26:16.119
- I\'m trying to look at it positively and say that,
26:16.119 --> 26:18.157
hey you know, if you\'re 13 and you\'re female,
26:18.157 --> 26:21.833
that might be a cut above the boy groups.
26:21.833 --> 26:24.901
♪ Stop right now, thank you very much ♪
26:24.901 --> 26:29.003
♪ I need somebody with a human touch ♪
26:29.003 --> 26:30.911
- If you\'re actually seeing female images
26:30.911 --> 26:33.729
and you\'re going with your little girlfriends and you know,
26:33.729 --> 26:36.904
you\'re sort of not afraid to make noise or be present.
26:36.904 --> 26:39.181
♪ Hey you, always on the run ♪
26:39.181 --> 26:42.789
♪ Gotta slow it down baby, gotta have some fun ♪
26:42.789 --> 26:43.859
(laughing)
26:43.859 --> 26:46.928
- So I\'m trying not to think of them as too evil, although,
26:46.928 --> 26:49.116
(laughs)
26:49.116 --> 26:52.029
although I would like to put them on an island somewhere,
26:52.029 --> 26:54.029
one without electricity.
26:57.860 --> 27:00.777
(heavy rock music)
27:09.313 --> 27:11.666
- [Narrator] Girl power is a sanitized version
27:11.666 --> 27:14.968
of the radical yet short lived Riot Grrrl movement,
27:14.968 --> 27:17.551
the \'90s daughter of punk rock.
27:18.505 --> 27:21.736
Riot Grrrl inspired hungry young female rockers to take up
27:21.736 --> 27:26.736
guitars to pile drive their anger and aggression into music.
27:27.368 --> 27:31.243
♪ My life ♪
27:31.243 --> 27:34.280
♪ To save my life ♪
27:34.280 --> 27:36.163
- [Narrator] The Riot Grrrl fanzine network
27:36.163 --> 27:40.349
reflected a new kind of feminism, one where the good, bad,
27:40.349 --> 27:43.802
and plain unconventional sat side by side.
27:43.802 --> 27:45.598
♪ Do your chores ♪
27:45.598 --> 27:47.263
♪ That\'s what you like me for ♪
27:47.263 --> 27:48.365
- [Narrator] In the early \'90s,
27:48.365 --> 27:51.039
diverse sounds from the girl power underground
27:51.039 --> 27:53.757
began to surface in the pop mainstream.
27:53.757 --> 27:55.557
♪ Sister ♪
27:55.557 --> 27:58.439
- [Narrator] This was a challenge to the pop market,
27:58.439 --> 28:01.333
where the feisty rock chick has always been regarded
28:01.333 --> 28:04.250
as more of a problem than an asset.
28:05.310 --> 28:06.366
- We were doing an interview
28:06.366 --> 28:08.369
somewhere in Denmark or somewhere like that,
28:08.369 --> 28:12.102
and they were talking about cock rock and hairspray bands,
28:12.102 --> 28:14.258
and all this kind of palaver muse,
28:14.258 --> 28:17.007
and I said, \"Oh no, we\'re not cock rock, we\'re clit rock.\"
28:17.007 --> 28:17.931
because we kind of came up
28:17.931 --> 28:19.779
alongside the whole Brit pop thing,
28:19.779 --> 28:22.230
you know this whole kind of marketing making up scenes
28:22.230 --> 28:24.624
and we were like, oh no, we\'re nothing like that.
28:24.624 --> 28:25.573
We\'re our own scene.
28:25.573 --> 28:27.013
We\'re clit rock.
28:27.013 --> 28:28.287
You know, and the journalist was like,
28:28.287 --> 28:30.309
\"You can\'t say that, you can\'t say that.\"
28:30.309 --> 28:33.982
And we\'re like, \"Clit rock, clitoris, clit rock.\"
28:33.982 --> 28:38.982
♪ Everyday hurts a little more ♪
28:39.073 --> 28:43.274
♪ And everyday hurts a little more ♪
28:43.274 --> 28:44.749
♪ And I\'ll do anything ♪
28:44.749 --> 28:46.750
♪ Yes I\'ll do anything ♪
28:46.750 --> 28:51.500
- I think that Skin is someone who has a difficult image.
28:52.836 --> 28:55.666
The fact that she\'s aggressive on stage,
28:55.666 --> 28:57.923
and her presence and image is aggressive,
28:57.923 --> 28:59.027
the fact that she\'s black,
28:59.027 --> 29:00.196
the fact that she\'s bald,
29:00.196 --> 29:02.707
the fact that\'s she openly bisexual.
29:02.707 --> 29:05.268
All of those things challenge people.
29:05.268 --> 29:08.518
♪ They\'re selling Jesus again ♪
29:08.518 --> 29:11.965
♪ They want your soul and your money ♪
29:11.965 --> 29:14.070
I see myself as quite a powerful figure.
29:14.070 --> 29:17.003
I see myself as trying to be a strong, powerful figure
29:17.003 --> 29:20.170
and I know I can be intimidating for a lot of people.
29:20.170 --> 29:25.170
- Certainly in America, radio programmers, TV programmers,
29:25.339 --> 29:27.829
booking agents, concert producers, etc.,
29:27.829 --> 29:30.960
find it a very hard image to get around,
29:30.960 --> 29:33.321
and most of them cannot get passed the image
29:33.321 --> 29:35.420
to listen to the music.
29:35.420 --> 29:38.027
♪ I wonder what you\'re doing now ♪
29:38.027 --> 29:41.013
♪ I wonder if you think of me at all ♪
29:41.013 --> 29:43.248
It\'s very much picking out a piece of my character
29:43.248 --> 29:46.219
and accentuating that piece of my character
29:46.219 --> 29:49.566
so it turns into, that is all that I am.
29:49.566 --> 29:51.011
Press wise, I think they think
29:51.011 --> 29:53.022
it\'s a bit more of an interesting story
29:53.022 --> 29:54.639
if I\'m seen as this kind of
29:54.639 --> 29:58.451
Grace Jones, Tina Turner, Godzilla type character.
29:58.451 --> 30:01.955
And onstage we do very powerful and very strong songs,
30:01.955 --> 30:03.521
and very aggressive songs, but at the same time,
30:03.521 --> 30:07.047
we do very soft, and vulnerable, and delicate songs.
30:07.047 --> 30:11.149
♪ Still want you here tonight ♪
30:11.149 --> 30:13.471
We will go to a certain point to break America,
30:13.471 --> 30:15.747
and we will not go beyond that.
30:15.747 --> 30:17.560
You know, we will not make denouncements.
30:17.560 --> 30:18.650
I will not make announcements
30:18.650 --> 30:21.997
saying that I\'m heterosexual for instance,
30:21.997 --> 30:24.286
you know there\'s certain things that you have to do,
30:24.286 --> 30:26.509
and otherwise it\'s just not worth it.
30:26.509 --> 30:27.825
Otherwise you\'re not happy with yourself
30:27.825 --> 30:29.198
and you wake up and you look in the mirror,
30:29.198 --> 30:32.704
you\'re not happy about why you\'re in this industry.
30:32.704 --> 30:34.564
You\'re not happy being on stage
30:34.564 --> 30:37.013
because you\'ve lost your integrity.
30:37.013 --> 30:40.453
♪ What drives you on ♪
30:40.453 --> 30:44.570
♪ Can drive you mad ♪
30:44.570 --> 30:48.107
♪ A million lies to sell yourself ♪
30:48.107 --> 30:52.190
♪ Is all you ever had ♪
30:52.190 --> 30:54.029
♪ Don\'t believe in love ♪
30:54.029 --> 30:55.544
- [Narrator] Success has given women
30:55.544 --> 30:57.822
increased bargaining power.
30:57.822 --> 30:59.978
As more female artists gain
30:59.978 --> 31:02.416
greater control over their careers,
31:02.416 --> 31:06.083
they refuse the be pushed around like pawns.
31:07.437 --> 31:08.811
- Exploited is a word that goes
31:08.811 --> 31:10.521
all the way through your record deal.
31:10.521 --> 31:13.174
We are going to be able to exploit this and exploit this,
31:13.174 --> 31:14.853
and you just have to be aware
31:14.853 --> 31:17.243
that that\'s exactly what\'s happening.
31:17.243 --> 31:18.795
♪ I went to the doctor ♪
31:18.795 --> 31:20.856
♪ And guess what he told me ♪
31:20.856 --> 31:23.233
♪ Guess what he told me ♪
31:23.233 --> 31:24.513
I got pregnant when I was in the process
31:24.513 --> 31:25.736
of making my first record
31:25.736 --> 31:28.583
and then I went to see the record company doctor,
31:28.583 --> 31:30.978
and you know, he basically sat me down and said,
31:30.978 --> 31:31.811
\"You know, your record company
31:31.811 --> 31:34.317
\"have spent 100,000 pounds recording your album.
31:34.317 --> 31:35.851
\"You owe it to them not to have this baby.
31:35.851 --> 31:38.141
\"You can\'t be leaping about the stage if you\'re pregnant.
31:38.141 --> 31:40.735
\"You can\'t be leaving your child later.\"
31:40.735 --> 31:42.305
And he even went as far as to tell me
31:42.305 --> 31:43.774
if I went on an airplane while I was pregnant,
31:43.774 --> 31:46.537
my child might be born with some sort of
31:46.537 --> 31:49.266
you know, handicap or something.
31:49.266 --> 31:53.294
- When I asked Madonna about her early experiences,
31:53.294 --> 31:56.164
she told me one horrifying tale
31:56.164 --> 31:59.346
about being offered a record contract
31:59.346 --> 32:02.252
in exchange for a nasty little sexual act.
32:02.252 --> 32:05.810
(energetic rock music)
32:05.810 --> 32:09.247
Business wise, the difference now for women
32:09.247 --> 32:12.637
is that it\'s much more friendly atmosphere.
32:12.637 --> 32:14.821
As in so many other walks of life,
32:14.821 --> 32:18.488
women are savvy to what they\'re entitled to.
32:19.368 --> 32:21.384
In three notable cases,
32:21.384 --> 32:24.562
Queen Latifah, Madonna, and Ani DiFranco,
32:24.562 --> 32:27.053
own and run their own record companies.
32:27.053 --> 32:29.262
♪ They get what they want ♪
32:29.262 --> 32:30.785
- [Narrator] There is now room for women
32:30.785 --> 32:33.001
who combine the strengths of Riot Grrrl
32:33.001 --> 32:36.139
with the sexual subversion of Madonna.
32:36.139 --> 32:38.801
A growing regiment of barefaced rock heroines
32:38.801 --> 32:42.612
refuse to conform to someone else\'s ideal.
32:42.612 --> 32:43.732
♪ I want you to ♪
32:43.732 --> 32:47.780
♪ Go on take everything, take everything ♪
32:47.780 --> 32:50.018
♪ I want you to ♪
32:50.018 --> 32:52.480
- Courtney Love is a card carrying feminist.
32:52.480 --> 32:54.262
She\'ll like say that exact phrase.
32:54.262 --> 32:55.823
- She\'s a pretty unique individual,
32:55.823 --> 32:58.823
and her use of story is very unique,
32:59.678 --> 33:01.069
and her rage was very unique.
33:01.069 --> 33:02.710
- What\'s great about her, I think,
33:02.710 --> 33:04.809
is that it\'s real, do you know what I mean?
33:04.809 --> 33:06.665
She fucking screams down the microphone.
33:06.665 --> 33:10.360
♪ Go on take everything, take everything ♪
33:10.360 --> 33:12.850
♪ I want you to ♪
33:12.850 --> 33:15.632
- Well, I met Courtney a few months ago in New York,
33:15.632 --> 33:18.380
and it\'s very difficult meeting sort of heroines,
33:18.380 --> 33:20.335
\'cause it\'s the thing, you know,
33:20.335 --> 33:22.589
you don\'t want your illusion to be shattered,
33:22.589 --> 33:25.654
\'cause then that\'ll just crush you further.
33:25.654 --> 33:29.232
My first images of her, I thought, \"Oh god, look at her.\"
33:29.232 --> 33:30.269
But then I read her interviews
33:30.269 --> 33:32.948
and I thought she was really honest.
33:32.948 --> 33:34.893
And you know, I wouldn\'t have a bad word
33:34.893 --> 33:36.384
to say about her really.
33:36.384 --> 33:39.498
But I think she defies conformity.
33:39.498 --> 33:40.831
She\'s very real.
33:42.361 --> 33:44.064
And she\'s fearless.
33:44.064 --> 33:46.443
- Courtney Love has had a great influence on younger women,
33:46.443 --> 33:49.013
has allowed the younger feminists to feel
33:49.013 --> 33:53.213
that there\'s something in rock for themselves.
33:53.213 --> 33:54.770
- I don\'t know if Courtney Love
33:54.770 --> 33:57.634
is such a influential even role model
33:57.634 --> 33:59.942
for young, young girls.
33:59.942 --> 34:01.888
Ani DiFranco\'s probably much more so,
34:01.888 --> 34:05.481
but for women our age, I think she pretty influential.
34:05.481 --> 34:07.246
She fucks with the system a lot.
34:07.246 --> 34:08.296
She\'s very intelligent.
34:08.296 --> 34:10.525
She shape shifts constantly.
34:10.525 --> 34:12.059
She\'s not intellectually gonna build something
34:12.059 --> 34:15.609
that I think is gonna be even what Madonna did,
34:15.609 --> 34:16.442
do you know what I mean?
34:16.442 --> 34:17.837
But I do think that she\'s pretty powerful
34:17.837 --> 34:21.177
and defiant and a mother, and she\'s always sort of been
34:21.177 --> 34:23.669
against this whole language of using girl.
34:23.669 --> 34:24.918
She was really making a statement
34:24.918 --> 34:26.980
when she would wear her kinder whore style of clothes
34:26.980 --> 34:29.322
and then just like kicking it with her guitar,
34:29.322 --> 34:32.319
and some skinny little urchin doing it
34:32.319 --> 34:33.643
I think has much less power.
34:33.643 --> 34:34.960
It\'s not as subversive.
34:34.960 --> 34:38.830
♪ Go on take everything, take everything ♪
34:38.830 --> 34:43.080
♪ Take everything, take everything ♪
34:48.035 --> 34:50.297
- [Narrator] As women artists become big sellers,
34:50.297 --> 34:52.358
the industry has begun to target
34:52.358 --> 34:55.608
a whole new market of female consumers.
34:57.632 --> 35:01.783
Women not only buy more records than ever before,
35:01.783 --> 35:06.783
but they now constitute over 40% of rock audiences.
35:07.243 --> 35:08.706
- I like the fact that so many women
35:08.706 --> 35:11.345
are coming to like heavy rock gigs,
35:11.345 --> 35:13.717
and they\'re not just going to idolize the lead singer.
35:13.717 --> 35:15.982
They\'re going because they love the heaviness of the music,
35:15.982 --> 35:17.660
and they\'re into that whole vibe.
35:17.660 --> 35:19.220
♪ It\'s a crack, I\'m back ♪
35:19.220 --> 35:21.733
♪ Yeah, I\'m standing on the rooftops ♪
35:21.733 --> 35:25.754
♪ Shouting out baby I\'m ready to go ♪
35:25.754 --> 35:29.496
♪ I\'m back, I\'m ready to go ♪
35:29.496 --> 35:33.285
♪ On the rooftops shouting out ♪
35:33.285 --> 35:36.501
We\'ve got this great like gang of female stage climbers,
35:36.501 --> 35:38.259
so it\'s kind of brilliant, you know?
35:38.259 --> 35:39.677
And I\'m like, yeah come on stage.
35:39.677 --> 35:41.179
You know, most people are like, get them off.
35:41.179 --> 35:42.012
Throw them off stage.
35:42.012 --> 35:43.703
I\'m like, yeah come on. (laughs)
35:43.703 --> 35:46.036
And sort of run and do this running leap into the audience.
35:46.036 --> 35:48.533
I think it\'s a good laugh, you know?
35:48.533 --> 35:51.515
\'Cause I wished it was more like that when I was young.
35:51.515 --> 35:53.661
You know, there are a lot more girls going to gigs.
35:53.661 --> 35:55.141
I think it\'s great, and they\'re at the front.
35:55.141 --> 35:57.762
Not at the back, with their boyfriend at the front,
35:57.762 --> 35:58.699
(laughs)
35:58.699 --> 36:00.756
which is great.
36:00.756 --> 36:04.883
♪ Baby I\'m ready to go ♪
36:04.883 --> 36:08.560
♪ Baby I\'m ready to go ♪
36:08.560 --> 36:11.810
♪ Baby I\'m ready to go ♪
36:12.663 --> 36:15.663
(audience cheering)
36:21.089 --> 36:24.372
♪ Typical girls try to be ♪
36:24.372 --> 36:27.237
♪ Typical girls very well ♪
36:27.237 --> 36:30.092
♪ Typical girls try to be ♪
36:30.092 --> 36:33.592
♪ Typical girls very well ♪
36:36.900 --> 36:39.072
- [Narrator] Early feminism was as radical
36:39.072 --> 36:42.407
and confrontational as punk rock.
36:42.407 --> 36:45.074
♪ Typical girls ♪
36:48.176 --> 36:49.734
- [Narrator] Because of it\'s shocking impact,
36:49.734 --> 36:53.901
for a long time it was kept safely to the margins.
36:54.934 --> 36:56.543
- There has to be extremes in movements
36:56.543 --> 36:58.793
to actually force movement,
37:00.958 --> 37:04.550
and you know, if it hadn\'t been for the suffragettes
37:04.550 --> 37:07.917
chaining themselves to the Houses of Parliament,
37:07.917 --> 37:09.313
god knows where we would be.
37:09.313 --> 37:10.681
We\'d probably still be without a vote.
37:10.681 --> 37:11.898
You know, there always has to,
37:11.898 --> 37:13.759
I think historically looking back,
37:13.759 --> 37:16.360
there always has to be hysteria.
37:16.360 --> 37:19.118
- Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol,
37:19.118 --> 37:21.933
is a good example of the kind of feminist I am.
37:21.933 --> 37:23.927
I\'m a kind of pugilist.
37:23.927 --> 37:25.429
I\'m born under the sign of Aries.
37:25.429 --> 37:26.590
I\'m a warrior.
37:26.590 --> 37:29.046
I believe that not all women can be me.
37:29.046 --> 37:30.745
Okay, I\'m like a very militant
37:30.745 --> 37:33.995
kind of cantankerous, outspoken person.
37:34.980 --> 37:36.547
I\'m an open lesbian and so on,
37:36.547 --> 37:38.141
although I\'ve had bisexual experience,
37:38.141 --> 37:41.473
and I\'m very open toward men and so on,
37:41.473 --> 37:44.221
but I think that you need us.
37:44.221 --> 37:48.362
I mean the feminists, all movements need this kind of,
37:48.362 --> 37:51.105
the avant-garde, the people who go through and bust through,
37:51.105 --> 37:53.825
and make room for the peacemakers to come after us
37:53.825 --> 37:55.938
who can be much more moderate.
37:55.938 --> 37:58.065
♪ I turned around red, somebody was catching the wrath ♪
37:58.065 --> 37:58.898
♪ Then the little one said ♪
37:58.898 --> 38:00.771
♪ Yeah me bitch, and laughed ♪
38:00.771 --> 38:02.983
♪ Since he was with his boys he tried to break fly ♪
38:02.983 --> 38:04.708
♪ Huh, I punched him dead in his eye ♪
38:04.708 --> 38:05.827
♪ And said, who you calling a bitch ♪
38:05.827 --> 38:08.185
- I think a huge accomplishment of feminism
38:08.185 --> 38:11.147
that we forget about because we now take it for granted
38:11.147 --> 38:16.064
is that the position of women is no longer seen as natural.
38:17.251 --> 38:20.631
And when I was growing up, it definitely was.
38:20.631 --> 38:25.085
You know, women were in a subordinate, supportive position,
38:25.085 --> 38:27.585
because of biology, because they had children,
38:27.585 --> 38:31.117
because, because, you know because God said so,
38:31.117 --> 38:33.370
Freud said so, (laughs) somebody said so.
38:33.370 --> 38:34.479
♪ I\'m not taking it no more ♪
38:34.479 --> 38:35.465
♪ I\'m not your personal whore ♪
38:35.465 --> 38:36.842
♪ That\'s not what I\'m here for ♪
38:36.842 --> 38:39.502
- My attitude was, a line must be drawn in the sand.
38:39.502 --> 38:41.430
Women must be taken seriously,
38:41.430 --> 38:44.697
so I was one of those people who felt that for example,
38:44.697 --> 38:46.616
all the chivalry, the gallantry
38:46.616 --> 38:48.287
with which men pull the chair out for you,
38:48.287 --> 38:49.784
or open the door for you, all of this,
38:49.784 --> 38:51.242
or put an arm around you to guide you.
38:51.242 --> 38:52.823
All of that stuff had to be stopped,
38:52.823 --> 38:53.656
and I was one of those people
38:53.656 --> 38:55.654
that was very physical saying, get off me.
38:55.654 --> 38:56.695
You know, shut up.
38:56.695 --> 38:58.122
I\'m one of the people, yell.
38:58.122 --> 38:59.542
I believe I\'m sort of in your face,
38:59.542 --> 39:02.966
kind of challenge to male condescension and so on.
39:02.966 --> 39:05.252
I was a constant problem.
39:05.252 --> 39:08.724
♪ Quickly she came, dressed up for fame ♪
39:08.724 --> 39:12.796
♪ Riding her perfume downstairs ♪
39:12.796 --> 39:14.041
- [Narrator] After 30 years,
39:14.041 --> 39:17.291
feminism has moved into the mainstream.
39:18.505 --> 39:21.325
The unpopular has become popular culture,
39:21.325 --> 39:23.730
and in its wake, the idea of post-feminism
39:23.730 --> 39:25.397
has gained credence.
39:26.939 --> 39:29.693
But if feminism is no longer necessary,
39:29.693 --> 39:31.654
why is popular culture saturated
39:31.654 --> 39:35.133
with retro images on dieting and dating?
39:35.133 --> 39:36.336
♪ She cares ♪
39:36.336 --> 39:39.338
♪ What do I do now ♪
39:39.338 --> 39:40.989
- [Narrator] The overhyped, overexposed
39:40.989 --> 39:43.820
Bridget Jones\'s Diary presents a new version
39:43.820 --> 39:46.044
of old rules for the \'90s ladette
39:46.044 --> 39:50.877
and its primary lesson is how not to be left on the shelf.
39:53.084 --> 39:54.413
Bridget Jones is being touted
39:54.413 --> 39:58.163
as a definitive role model for today\'s women.
39:59.622 --> 40:01.300
And as if Bridget wasn\'t enough,
40:01.300 --> 40:04.332
we now have her transatlantic counterpart,
40:04.332 --> 40:08.172
the ditzy Ally McBeal, an insufferable 30-something
40:08.172 --> 40:11.578
who frets about her hemline and her marriage prospects.
40:11.578 --> 40:13.075
♪ He goes to bed ♪
40:13.075 --> 40:17.074
♪ Dreaming of her on his own ♪
40:17.074 --> 40:21.194
♪ She stays up all week, watching him sleep ♪
40:21.194 --> 40:24.593
♪ Scared that she\'ll wake up alone ♪
40:24.593 --> 40:26.480
♪ What do I do now ♪
40:26.480 --> 40:27.752
- [Narrator] These fickle characters
40:27.752 --> 40:31.280
are part of a \'90s backlash, a trend that undermines
40:31.280 --> 40:34.851
women\'s hard won self-esteem and independence.
40:34.851 --> 40:36.483
♪ Maybe I\'m just stupid ♪
40:36.483 --> 40:38.726
♪ Can\'t we try again ♪
40:38.726 --> 40:41.067
- The phrase post-feminist is constantly thrown about,
40:41.067 --> 40:43.775
and I understand what it means on one level,
40:43.775 --> 40:45.719
but it\'s also totally meaningless.
40:45.719 --> 40:46.822
It\'s like, well you know,
40:46.822 --> 40:49.625
I can be all cutesy and I can flirt with guys,
40:49.625 --> 40:50.746
but I\'m still strong.
40:50.746 --> 40:52.852
And it\'s like, well yeah, that\'s true one on level,
40:52.852 --> 40:54.749
but it doesn\'t recognize the realities
40:54.749 --> 40:56.365
of women\'s lives today.
40:56.365 --> 40:58.317
♪ You take it out on me, but that\'s about enough ♪
40:58.317 --> 40:59.271
♪ You put your hands on me again ♪
40:59.271 --> 41:01.340
♪ I\'ll put your ass in handcuffs ♪
41:01.340 --> 41:03.602
- I think that very strong women in rock
41:03.602 --> 41:05.204
project those realities,
41:05.204 --> 41:08.971
the ways in women are downtrodden or shunned to the side
41:08.971 --> 41:12.833
and still sort of moving forward and keeping your head up,
41:12.833 --> 41:15.132
but I think that those very fundamental messages
41:15.132 --> 41:18.102
should be transmitted to the young women of today.
41:18.102 --> 41:20.034
- The great goal of feminism
41:20.034 --> 41:22.140
that was setup in the late 18th century
41:22.140 --> 41:23.836
was carried right through the 19th century,
41:23.836 --> 41:25.217
right though the 20th century,
41:25.217 --> 41:26.285
hasn\'t it been achieved?
41:26.285 --> 41:29.488
You know, we\'re still looking to get to that equality.
41:29.488 --> 41:32.087
- A friend of mine who\'s an actress said once
41:32.087 --> 41:34.940
that she\'d been married to one Marxist and one fascist,
41:34.940 --> 41:36.748
and neither one took the garbage out,
41:36.748 --> 41:37.950
and I\'ve been quoting her for years
41:37.950 --> 41:42.244
because I think it says simply why patriarchy
41:42.244 --> 41:45.251
is deeper than existing political labels.
41:45.251 --> 41:47.629
- [Narrator] Political labels
41:47.629 --> 41:50.740
carry a great deal of negative baggage.
41:50.740 --> 41:53.764
Despite growing up with the gains of feminism,
41:53.764 --> 41:55.377
many female artists are reluctant
41:55.377 --> 41:57.799
to call themselves feminists.
41:57.799 --> 42:00.407
The bra burning, man hating, hairy lesbian
42:00.407 --> 42:04.407
is still a powerful stereotype hard to cast off.
42:07.163 --> 42:10.015
- I\'m kind of very wary of isms and ists,
42:10.015 --> 42:13.756
and I don\'t identify with the kind of man hating thing,
42:13.756 --> 42:15.617
because you know, I think in a lot of ways
42:15.617 --> 42:17.244
men get a very rough deal as well.
42:17.244 --> 42:19.649
They\'re always seen as the baddie, and it\'s really,
42:19.649 --> 42:22.278
it should be a bit more 50/50, do you know what I mean?
42:22.278 --> 42:24.881
That we need to accept responsibility as well,
42:24.881 --> 42:26.593
but it depends on exactly
42:26.593 --> 42:28.604
what a feminist is, that\'s the thing.
42:28.604 --> 42:30.597
I mean, what exactly is a feminist?
42:30.597 --> 42:32.529
♪ He said, girl you better try to have fun ♪
42:32.529 --> 42:35.985
♪ No matter what you do ♪
42:35.985 --> 42:37.821
♪ Well he\'s a fool ♪
42:37.821 --> 42:42.530
♪ \'Cause nothing compares ♪
42:42.530 --> 42:46.803
♪ Nothing compares to you ♪
42:46.803 --> 42:49.929
- What disturbs me to a great degree about the way
42:49.929 --> 42:53.406
that images of women are presented to teenagers
42:53.406 --> 42:55.966
is that the feminist message is always associated
42:55.966 --> 43:00.966
with being dowdy, out of fashion, out of date, antiquated.
43:01.242 --> 43:02.641
- If you say, oh feminism.
43:02.641 --> 43:06.717
Then people think, oh my god, flat shoes and harsh haircuts.
43:06.717 --> 43:08.404
- When I said to young women,
43:08.404 --> 43:09.866
would you call yourself a feminist?
43:09.866 --> 43:12.134
I got the most ridiculous responses back.
43:12.134 --> 43:13.505
No, I wouldn\'t call myself a feminist
43:13.505 --> 43:15.352
\'cause I like reading glossy magazines.
43:15.352 --> 43:16.750
No, I wouldn\'t call myself a feminist
43:16.750 --> 43:18.427
\'cause I don\'t mind being called love.
43:18.427 --> 43:20.954
You know, and all these responses from women
43:20.954 --> 43:22.767
who clearly were feminists,
43:22.767 --> 43:24.865
who were saying they wanted more equality,
43:24.865 --> 43:27.173
who were saying that they wanted to be themselves,
43:27.173 --> 43:29.737
be independent to what they wanted in their lives.
43:29.737 --> 43:30.941
- In the \'80s especially,
43:30.941 --> 43:33.808
it became this kind of catchphrase for, oh you\'re feminist.
43:33.808 --> 43:34.795
Oh, you\'re a lesbian.
43:34.795 --> 43:35.687
Oh sorry, feminist.
43:35.687 --> 43:37.253
You know?
43:37.253 --> 43:38.712
- There\'s still a fear of being labeled a dyke,
43:38.712 --> 43:39.808
and I just see it all the time.
43:39.808 --> 43:43.287
I see people reconciling their feminism by being like,
43:43.287 --> 43:45.052
not all feminists are lesbians,
43:45.052 --> 43:46.105
and that being the only way
43:46.105 --> 43:49.809
that they can argue for their right to be one.
43:49.809 --> 43:53.958
- The whole vibe of it has been kind of objectified,
43:53.958 --> 43:57.120
and walked into this negative word,
43:57.120 --> 43:58.335
into this thing that young women
43:58.335 --> 44:00.778
don\'t want to see themselves as being feminists.
44:00.778 --> 44:01.886
While at the same time they want
44:01.886 --> 44:04.316
to be able to have the same opportunities,
44:04.316 --> 44:07.835
so then you know, are they not feminists?
44:07.835 --> 44:12.319
♪ Nothing takes the past away ♪
44:12.319 --> 44:15.147
♪ Like the future ♪
44:15.147 --> 44:19.244
♪ Nothing makes the darkness go ♪
44:19.244 --> 44:21.041
- There\'s so many women writers that are bitching
44:21.041 --> 44:24.452
about hanging onto feminism and it\'s like you know,
44:24.452 --> 44:26.993
this is like a stale old pussy, man.
44:26.993 --> 44:30.292
Come up with something else, wash it.
44:30.292 --> 44:32.003
Transcend, get wings,
44:32.003 --> 44:36.485
become the thing you\'re talking about in your speech.
44:36.485 --> 44:39.386
♪ I wanna smash the faces ♪
44:39.386 --> 44:42.176
♪ Of those beautiful boys ♪
44:42.176 --> 44:45.533
♪ Those Christian boys ♪
44:45.533 --> 44:49.455
♪ So you can make me come ♪
44:49.455 --> 44:53.497
♪ That doesn\'t make you Jesus ♪
44:53.497 --> 44:55.445
For feminism to really work,
44:55.445 --> 44:58.445
then it must transcend the category.
45:00.033 --> 45:01.505
If you want equal rights,
45:01.505 --> 45:05.979
it has to become not segregated in the speech.
45:05.979 --> 45:08.302
You talk about your experience as a woman,
45:08.302 --> 45:11.172
it\'s not compartmentalized under a heading.
45:11.172 --> 45:14.089
- I think we\'re sort of a living definition of feminism,
45:14.089 --> 45:16.942
kind of because you can\'t go around talking about,
45:16.942 --> 45:18.676
oh, I believe in myself.
45:18.676 --> 45:20.869
I believe that I have the right to do these things.
45:20.869 --> 45:22.518
You know, we just got off our asses,
45:22.518 --> 45:26.521
went and did all of the things that we ever wanted to do.
45:26.521 --> 45:28.449
Not all of them yet, but you know.
45:28.449 --> 45:29.867
We started.
45:29.867 --> 45:34.867
♪ Sometimes the sun shines on unkind people ♪
45:35.207 --> 45:36.760
- [Narrator] By their very existence,
45:36.760 --> 45:38.671
women performers have expanded
45:38.671 --> 45:40.909
the meaning of the word feminist.
45:40.909 --> 45:42.880
♪ Shy people, people like you ♪
45:42.880 --> 45:44.413
- [Narrator] It now incorporates tolerance,
45:44.413 --> 45:49.413
diversity, and an absolute belief in male/female equality.
45:49.668 --> 45:52.928
Feminism is a good word with a bad press.
45:52.928 --> 45:56.971
It is time for it to be used again with pride.
45:56.971 --> 45:58.882
- I definitely define myself as a feminist.
45:58.882 --> 46:03.549
This does not disallow wonderful clothes, good lipstick,
46:04.744 --> 46:07.053
sex with whomever I choose,
46:07.053 --> 46:10.962
the demand, the right to be contradictory,
46:10.962 --> 46:14.738
the right to be angry and sometimes defeated,
46:14.738 --> 46:17.837
the right to be good and sometimes bad.
46:17.837 --> 46:20.343
The right to live exactly as I want,
46:20.343 --> 46:23.809
and to me that was always what feminism was about.
46:23.809 --> 46:25.964
It wasn\'t a deal that you made with God or the devil,
46:25.964 --> 46:28.497
that you sacrificed this and you got that.
46:28.497 --> 46:30.199
I want everything, and I want it all,
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and that\'s what feminism was about for me,
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getting all and everything.
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♪ Rock a bye baby, in the treetop ♪
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♪ Yeah when the wind blows ♪
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♪ The cradle will rock ♪
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♪ When the bough breaks ♪
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- [Narrator] Rich rock stars like Madonna and Courtney Love
46:47.790 --> 46:49.184
clearly don\'t have to worry
46:49.184 --> 46:51.656
about paying bills for childcare.
46:51.656 --> 46:52.942
They may not feel the urge
46:52.942 --> 46:56.033
to campaign for daycare centers or equal pay,
46:56.033 --> 46:59.099
but their very presence broadcasts to the world
46:59.099 --> 47:02.633
an image of stronger female self-determination.
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♪ The cradle will fall ♪
47:04.612 --> 47:09.612
- Any group of people whether it\'s musicians or artists,
47:09.862 --> 47:14.695
or you know, actors, or people where we garner media focus
47:15.995 --> 47:18.192
will always have an influence in society,
47:18.192 --> 47:19.824
definitely without a doubt.
47:19.824 --> 47:21.285
I mean, simply because they\'re magnified.
47:21.285 --> 47:23.809
You can\'t really ignore them.
47:23.809 --> 47:26.860
♪ Look over ♪
47:26.860 --> 47:29.277
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
47:37.537 --> 47:41.716
- Watching someone like Skin jumping around on stage
47:41.716 --> 47:45.281
is kind of like a catharsis for a lot of women
47:45.281 --> 47:48.213
who are thinking, I want to behave like that.
47:48.213 --> 47:50.078
I want not to give a damn.
47:50.078 --> 47:53.578
I want to be able to be angry and show it.
47:55.881 --> 47:57.181
- It\'s not nice to feel that people
47:57.181 --> 48:00.098
are looking to you for the answers.
48:01.010 --> 48:03.535
You know, and like Linda McCartney would say,
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and I quote, \"I have no answers.\"
48:07.395 --> 48:12.056
So, I think if I\'ve encouraged anyone to do anything,
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I\'m just happy if I\'ve encouraged them
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to just get on and do what they wanted to do.
48:16.924 --> 48:20.424
♪ Nothing compares to you ♪
48:21.776 --> 48:22.979
People who make music
48:22.979 --> 48:26.256
become in a way role models for people.
48:26.256 --> 48:27.214
I don\'t know if they would say
48:27.214 --> 48:28.724
they saw me as a feminist role model.
48:28.724 --> 48:29.704
They would see me,
48:29.704 --> 48:32.178
they would identify with me because I\'m a woman,
48:32.178 --> 48:35.691
but they wouldn\'t think the word feminist necessarily.
48:35.691 --> 48:36.524
♪ And I wonder ♪
48:36.524 --> 48:37.936
♪ Is he different, is he different ♪
48:37.936 --> 48:39.780
♪ Has he changed ♪
48:39.780 --> 48:44.780
♪ Or is he just a liar with nothing to lie about ♪
48:45.671 --> 48:48.259
If I decide I\'m gonna say something,
48:48.259 --> 48:52.802
I\'m gonna describe an experience or admit to my life,
48:52.802 --> 48:55.080
and then a whole bunch of young women say,
48:55.080 --> 48:56.702
\"Oh wow, thanks for saying that.
48:56.702 --> 48:59.936
\"Me too, I can\'t believe somebody said it.\"
48:59.936 --> 49:04.825
Then that in turn also makes me feel like I exist more,
49:04.825 --> 49:06.822
like oh okay, you too and you too.
49:06.822 --> 49:09.052
So there you go, here we are,
49:09.052 --> 49:11.261
and I must be an actual person
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(laughs)
49:12.106 --> 49:13.723
in the actual world.
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(energetic rock music)
49:16.832 --> 49:20.150
- [Narrator] Rock music has done more to popularize feminism
49:20.150 --> 49:23.121
than any other cultural phenomenon.
49:23.121 --> 49:26.523
The longer our female stars refuse to shut up and sing,
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the more women feel that they too
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can be just who they want to be.
49:33.967 --> 49:36.509
Women in rock have brought \'90s feminism
49:36.509 --> 49:40.759
into mainstream culture, which is where it belongs.
49:41.919 --> 49:43.179
♪ And I\'ll do anything ♪
49:43.179 --> 49:44.985
♪ Yes I\'ll do anything ♪
49:44.985 --> 49:46.602
♪ To belong, to be strong ♪
49:46.602 --> 49:49.255
♪ To say there\'s nothing wrong ♪
49:49.255 --> 49:51.805
♪ Everyday hurts a little more ♪
49:51.805 --> 49:55.580
♪ Everyday hurts a little more ♪
49:55.580 --> 49:57.179
♪ And I\'ll do anything ♪
49:57.179 --> 49:58.973
♪ Yes I\'ll do anything ♪
49:58.973 --> 50:00.676
♪ To belong, to be strong ♪
50:00.676 --> 50:02.311
♪ To say there\'s nothing wrong ♪
50:02.311 --> 50:05.571
♪ Everyday hurts ♪
50:05.571 --> 50:09.067
♪ Everyday hurts ♪
50:09.067 --> 50:11.817
♪ Everyday hurts ♪