Read the following text and answer the questions. The riot grrrl returns Dan Hancox – October 3, 2013 – The National Among the various waves of western feminism and rebellious youth subcultures since the 1960s, riot grrrl stands out as one of the most provocative, but also one of the most thoughtful and deliberative. Its roots were in the punk and new wave music and attitude of the late 1970s and 1980s, but it was not until the early 1990s that the term emerged from the punk scenes of Washington DC and the north-western region of the United 5 States, drawing on a growing youth feminist movement and the DIY youth culture embodied in homemade, cut-and-paste fanzines. References to “revolution girl style now” and “riot girls” mutated into the punk growl not of docile girls but “grrrls”. It was quickly and substantially misunderstood by the very culture they were rebelling against: as bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile began to attract attention beyond the punk underground, so did the American 10 media’s excitement about this “new big thing”, in the aftermath of grunge. This excitement quickly manifested itself in a tendency to generalise, fetishise and trivialise the things the riot grrrls were singing about, and conveying through their broader aesthetics: in fanzines, onstage, or otherwise. “There were,” Sharon Cheslow said in the 11-part Riot Grrrl Retrospective documentary, “a lot of very important ideas that I think the mainstream media couldn’t handle, so it was easier to focus on the fact that these were girls who 15 were wearing barrettes in their hair or writing ‘slut’ on their stomach.” Covering issues like misogyny, abuse and patriarchy were considered too contentious or complex for the American mainstream, and instead, the movement was patronised in a way which confirmed much of their original anger. “Feminist riot grrrls don’t just wanna have fun,” read the headline in USA Today – because it’s one or the other, of course: have fun or be a feminist. The article itself was even worse: “From hundreds of once pink, frilly bedrooms comes the 20 young feminist revolution. And it’s not pretty. But it doesn’t wanna be. So there!” As the clamour grew ever louder, there was increasing suspicion of this kind of “interest”, and by the end of 1992, a media blackout had been declared. The riot grrrl manifesto, published in 1991 in the BIKINI KILL ZINE, made clear the reason for this need for self-sufficiency: their task was to create a space for young women to speak – to one another, and in 25 general – without outside interference or the moderating influence of capitalism and patriarchy. The first two items in the manifesto read as follows: “BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways. “BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other’s work so that we can share 30 strategies and criticise-applaud each other.” Bikini Kill, fronted by the iconic Kathleen Hanna, were always determined that they as a band did not define riot grrrl, nor were they defined by it – this selfless caveat aside, they have become the band many people would first associate with the sound. A raucous interpolation of American punk that produced such classics as Rebel Girl, Strawberry Julius and Reject All American – as well as numerous other great bands, especially 35 the likes of Huggy Bear and later Sleater-Kinney – the sound made a much bigger impact on 1990s and 2000s rock music than its underground ethics would suggest. The sound has been around long enough now that it is being historicised, fondly recalled, and discovered anew by younger riot grrrls (and boys) – becoming the subject of doctoral studies, documentaries, and books like Sara Marcus’s Girls to the Front, Nadine Monem’s Riot Grrrl and the edited Riot Grrrl Collection of 40 original 1990s zines and writing. At a Q&A following the film premiere of The Punk Singer at America’s SXSW festival earlier this year, an audience member asked Hanna whether the response to angry young women in bands had changed since she had started making music. “When I was first in a band, when I was in Bikini Kill, it was really hard: a lot of the men in the punk scene were super resistant, and super pissed off at us, and then there were also women who called us man haters, 45 and spit in our faces, and were super destructive.” She continued to say that as the sound changed around the turn of the millennium, in her second band, the more electronic-orientated trio Le Tigre, the attitude did too. Le Tigre were still as radical and righteous in their politics, but bringing that fight to the dance floor found them a new audience: “Having people dance, and having people enjoy each other, felt really political, and really thrilling,” she reflected. 50 Following Le Tigre’s success, peaking with electro-punk dance floor classics like the single “Deceptacon”, Hanna disappeared for much of the 2000s. She recently announced she had been suffering from what turned out to be Lyme disease, and would be returning with a new five-piece band, under the same name she had used once before, for her little-known and underrated 1998 solo album, The Julie Ruin. Not surprisingly, since there are four more people in the band this time, their new album, Run Fast is a much fuller sounding 55 record than its predecessor 15 years ago. The final song, the album’s title song, is a (short) history of riot grrrl to rival any of the genre’s new books or documentaries: starting with a lament for the way young women in the West are treated from the time they are in kindergarten, and proceeding to the early 1990s, being “told that we weren’t real punks” by the boys, and concluding philosophically, and with justified collective pride: “In the end we made tiny islands where 60 we didn’t always have to be afraid / and an X will forever mark the spot, when we decided we had had just about enough / we ran so fast”. *The National is a newspaper from the United Arab Emirates. /4 1. Present the document in a few sentences. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ /0,5 2. Choose the appropriate meaning for each term or expression: handle (l. 14) the movement was patronized (l. 16-17) □ manipulate □ the movement was called □ understand □ the movement was considered as the leader □ copy □ the movement was treated as inferior /1,5 3. True or False? Justify by quoting from the text (also give line number). T F The riot grrrl movement showed a strong spirit of independence. _______________________________________________________________________________________ T F Kathleen Hanna explains that fun and politics are incompatible. _______________________________________________________________________________________ T F One of the subjects of Hanna’s last album is the condition of women in developing countries. _______________________________________________________________________________________ /4 5. Translate the following sentences from the text into French: “the sound made a much bigger impact on 1990s and 2000s rock music than its underground ethics would suggest.” (l. 35-36) _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ “an audience member asked Hanna whether the response to angry young women in bands had changed since she had started making music” (l. 41-42) _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________ /2 6. Find translations for the following words in the text (also give line numbers) une émeute = controversé = sous-estimer = une plainte = /8 7. Essay: What role do the mainstream media play in the existence and representation of subcultures or cultural movements? Answer in an organized essay; you can refer to the text, but you must absolutely use other arguments and other examples. Mimimum 250 words. .