Shut Up & Sing

What’s the Story?

SHUT UP & SING is an impassioned, politically informed documentary about the Dixie Chicks' run-in with country music radio and fans. The film traces the backlash against the Chicks following singer Natalie Maines' now-infamous declaration at a London concert on March 10, 2003: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." A boycott of their music threatened their career. Maines, Martie Maguire, and Emily Robison took on the controversy as a means to defend "free speech." They spoke against majority opinion, which supported the invasion of Iraq. Cutting back and forth in time, Shut Up & Sing includes concert footage, reactions to a death threat made against Maines, recording sessions for Taking the Long Way, and discussions with manager Simon Renshaw as he and the Chicks figure what to do, as the fallout begins to build. The Chicks are asked repeatedly whether they "have regrets," but, after the first worries, they embrace their new status and working conditions.

Is It Any Good?

Barbara Kopple and Cecelia Peck's film shows the Chicks to be wives of supportive husbands and mothers of young children, as well as long-time collaborators (Maguire and Robison are sisters). This focus makes the Chicks look especially likable, as if the movie means to recuperate them into the fold of domestic conservatism. But, in fact, it argues against labeling the Chicks as either "good" country western artists or "bad" unpatriotic bigmouths.

The whole situation reveals the ways that the music industry manages its business; the movie shows footage from a July 2003 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on radio ownership in which the "ban on the Dixie Chicks" was investigated. As reported in Freepress senators sought to discover "whether or not the radio ban on the Dixie Chicks during the Iraq war constitutes a concern related to concentration of ownership." One witness states that the decision to boycott the Chicks' songs "was a collaborative decision-making process. Everybody fell in line." As the film ends, the Chicks' anti-war stance has become popular, even as they remain "not ready to make nice." The changes in their career and fan base may not alter the way the music industry works -- still, the Chicks will not shut up.