New Works on Riot Grrrl, Girl Zines, and Girl Rock
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MULTIMEDIA REVIEW “VERNACULAR THIRD WAVE DISCOURSE”: NEW WORKS ON RIOT GRRRL, GIRL ZINES, AND GIRL ROCK by Virginia Corvid DON’T NEED YOU: THE HERSTORY OF RIOT GRRRL. 40 mins. Directed by Kerri Koch. Produced by Urban Cowgirl Productions, 2006. DVD available for purchase: $14.99 plus shipping, http://urbancowgirlproductions.com/ uc/?page_id=3/. Sarah Marcus, GIRLS TO THE FRONT: THE TRUE STORY OF THE RIOT GRRRL REVOLUTION. New York: Harper, 2010. 281p. $14.99, ISBN 978-006180636. Marisa Meltzer, GIRL POWER: THE NINETIES REVOLUTION IN MUSIC. New York: Faber & Faber, 2010. $14.00, ISBN 978-0865479791. Alison Piepmeier, GIRL ZINES: MAKING MEDIA, DOING FEMINISM. New York: New York University Press, 2009. 272p. $22.00, ISBN 978-0814767528. GIRLS ROCK! THE MOVIE. 89 mins. Directed by Shane King & Arne Johnson. Produced by (Your Name Here) Productions and Ro*co Films International, 2008. DVD available for purchase for home use: $25.00 plus shipping, http:// www.girlsrockmovie.com/order. Licensing for educational and public showings also available. Marisa Anderson, ROCK ’N’ ROLL CAMP FOR GIRLS: HOW TO START A BAND, WRITE SONGS, RECORD AN ALBUM AND ROCK OUT! San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2008. 191p. $14.95, ISBN 978-0811852227. In the early 1990s, the punk the empowerment of a new genera- Bratmobile, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini feminist movement called Riot Grrrl tion of girls. Like Riot Grrrl, these new Kill, Sharon Cheslow of Chalk Circle, emerged in the United States, with offerings confront ongoing struggles Ramdasha Bikceem of Gunk, and Ma- hubs of significant activity in Olympia, with intersectionality in feminism and digan Shive of Tattle Tale.1 Koch uses Washington, and Washington, D.C. misrepresentation of feminism in the interview footage and archival materi- Combining musical performance, zine mainstream media. Throughout these als interspersed with excerpts from production, irreverent style, and the tensions, however, the transformative the Riot Grrrl manifesto originally DIY ethos of punk, Riot Grrrl forged power of women and girls creating cul- published in Bikini Kill 2 to weave the a feminist praxis premised upon social ture and critiquing patriarchy remains fabric of the narrative.2 This approach and personal transformation through the touchstone in these vibrant works. tracks individual experiences of Riot cultural production and girl com- Grrrl, as well as a historical timeline munity — or, as Riot Grrrl put it, girl For those new to the history of of Riot Grrrl’s rise to prominence and love and girl power. Recent scholarship Riot Grrrl as a feminist musical move- subsequent participant disillusionment has begun to examine this movement ment, Don’t Need You, a documentary relating to the movement’s primarily and the larger Third Wave of feminism film by Kerri Koch, offers an excellent white, middle-class participant base in which it was located. Simultane- introduction. The film features inter- and trivialization in the media. ously and with significant overlap, views with the prominent zinesters The film closes with reflections on Riot Grrrl participants have begun to and musicians, such as Corin Tucker the meaning and significance of Riot document their activities and to foster of Heavens to Betsy, Allison Wolfe of Grrrl that recuperatively position it as Feminist Collections (v. 31, no. 4, Fall 2010) Page 11 Multimedia Review a feminist movement of young female timeline unfolds, it transitions from spective emerges from Marcus’s inno- artists. With this narrative arc and the early centrality of punk to the later vative narrative style, which grounds material, Koch’s composition not only centrality of zines. The trivializing and her presentation of Riot Grrrl activity provides a compelling introduction to sensationalized media fascination with in the perspectives of the actors. Con- Riot Grrrl, but also strikes the sensitive Riot Grrrl and the controversial media tradictory perspectives, analyses, and and informed tone necessary for con- blackout also receive indepth coverage. interpretations receive side-by-side veying the story of a movement that Although other writers have addressed sympathetic telling, yet the overall was ideologically opposed to definition these aspects of Riot Grrrl history coherence of the work remains intact and experienced outside definition as before, Marcus brings a new level of and is strengthened by the contradic- such a negative force. Alongside the detail and temporal development. tions. The book would have benefited, documentary, Koch provides however, from more attention to extended interview and archival the perspectives of grrrls of color. material footage in the bonus Although Marcus attends to the features, making the film an predominantly white participant even greater resource for further base of the movement and the Riot Grrrl scholarship. resistant reaction elicited by an “unlearning racism” workshop at For a more indepth ex- the first Riot Grrrl convention, amination of the history of Riot interviews with prominent grrrls Grrrl, Girls to the Front: The True of color like Mimi Nguyen and Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, Ramdasha Bikceem are notably by Sara Marcus, delivers on its absent. Despite this failing, Girls subtitle and offers a singularly to the Front has much to offer comprehensive, multi-faceted and deepens the extant scholar- account. Marcus brings a unique ship on Riot Grrrl. insider/outsider perspective to Riot Grrrl history. As she reveals In another approach, at the beginning of the book, Marisa Meltzer examines Riot Marcus missed the early years Grrrl as an antecedent to the of Riot Grrrl development but music and marketing phenom- later connected to Riot Grrrl at ena of girl power. She states her a center of activity in Washing- intentions in the preface to Girl ton, D.C. Therefore, she has an Power: The Nineties Revolution intimate familiarity with Riot in Music: “In this book I have Grrrl feminist analyses, but also traced the roots, evolution, and a distance from the stormiest eventual co-option of girl power events in Riot Grrrl’s history. in an attempt to figure out what From this position, she relays many of Girls to the Front also offers sus- it all means and where music and femi- the complicated and dispersed strands tained attention to the focus, in Riot nism are headed” (p. ix). Meltzer also of Riot Grrrl history based on her Grrrl, on sexual harassment, physical makes it clear that she intends to focus familiarity and five years of research. abuse, and sexual violence, which most on privileged perspectives on this his- Her account covers the bands Bikini previous coverage has either glossed, tory, commenting, “The good feminist Kill, Bratmobile, and Huggy Bear, as ignored, or actively suppressed. As in me wants to make sure that I’m well as Riot Grrrl activity in Olympia, Marcus demonstrates, the personal not overlooking any outsider groups, D.C., New York, the Twin Cities, and experience of these issues motivated but they are not part of the story I am Omaha. Throughout, the account many young women and girls to con- looking to tell” (p. x) — a shortsighted incorporates interviews, lyrics, and nect to Riot Grrrl in an era when the approach, since constructions of white zine excerpts and positions Riot Grrrl media was declaring feminism dead. femininity, consumerism, and hetero- in the context of the 1990s backlash, This previously under-addressed per- sexuality have been at the heart of co- especially anti-abortion politics. As the opted definitions of girl power. With Page 12 Feminist Collections (v. 31, no. 4, Fall 2010) Multimedia Review taste: Spice Girls and contributions — the vocabulary, con- Brittany Spears: thumbs ceptual apparatus, and explanatory nar- up. April Lavigne and ratives — of the third wave have not Pussy Cat Dolls: thumbs been recognized by scholars because down. Both Meltzer and they’re being developed in unexpected, this topic have more to nonacademic sites, like zines” (p. 10). offer than the blog-post- The text helps bridge this gap with like fare presented in Girl well-researched examinations of ex- Power. change in zine culture, the Third Wave, While Meltzer exam- and the range of constructions of femi- ines Riot Grrrl as part of ninity in zines, as well as the handling a larger musical history, of intersectionality and revolutionary Alison Piepmeier, in Girl hopefulness in zines. Comfortable with Zines: Making Media, Do- complexity, Piepmeier critiques binary ing Feminism, addresses divisions of victimization/agency and the movement as part complicity/resistance to develop a nu- of a larger development anced perspective of the feminist work of feminist zines. The and discourse in girl zines. Overall, the first monograph-length book admirably engages the compli- academic examination of cated nature and context of girl zines, feminist zines, Piepmeier’s including girl culture, Third Wave fem- work is an insightful and inism, and girl zines themselves whose long-overdue engage- creators contradict and explicitly resist ment with the feminist work in zines, which this broad, vague research question played a pivotal role not and self-authorization to downplay or only in Riot Grrrl but ignore issues like race, class, and sexu- also in the development ality, the slim volume unsurprisingly of the Third Wave in gen- comes across as hollow. It reads like eral. Piepmeier aptly de- a series of long expository magazine fines zines as “vernacular articles covering, in succession, Riot third wave” discourse (p. Grrrl, “Angry Womyn” in rock, 1990s 9), and she combines “the girl groups, 1990s female pop stars existing scholarly work on (aka “Pop Tarts”), and Ladyfest femi- zines with a much-needed nist musical and art festivals. broad range of interdis- Girl Power comes across as a thin ciplinary perspectives layer of journalistic coverage stretched on book culture, activist over Meltzer’s personal grappling with art, and participatory the contradictions between enjoying media in order to map the consumption of pop culture and out as fully as possible her feminist analyses.