Shut Up and Sing movie review (2007)

Kopple and Peck seem to have free access to the Chicks, backstage and behind closed doors, and we hear them in frank discussions with their manager, Simon Renshaw, about the devastation of their careers. At first, a stunned Maines tries to rationalize: She was just kidding, it was a throwaway line, she supports our troops but not the President’s invasion. It becomes clear that Chicks fans are not big on nuance, and have a zero tolerance for dissent.

Or do they? Were the nation’s country stations gutless in caving in to the threats of boycott? Was there not one with the courage to play the most popular country group in the land? On their first American tour after the debacle, the Chicks sell out every arena, are cheered in standing ovations, and are embraced in Greenville, S.C. on the very day of “Mission Accomplished.” At one concert, Maines tells the audience it’s OK to boo: “We believe in freedom of speech. So let’s stop right now for 15 seconds of booing.” All she hears are cheers.

The documentary shows what a tight-knit group the Chicks are. Banjo player Emily Robison and fiddler Martie Maguire, sisters who brought in Maines as lead singer, had no idea what Maine was going to say that day in London, but they stand behind her without question. There’s no complaining, just shellshock.

During the course of 2003-2006, Robison and Maguire have babies (Emily has twins) after agonizing fertility procedures. They write and record “Taking the Long Way,” a new album in which, far from apologizing, Maines sings “Not Ready to Make Nice.” It is some of their best work, freeing them from the confines of country, but the album doesn’t sell like their earlier work. Discussing lagging CD and concert sales, they decide to be honest about it. It becomes clear that their careers are less important to them than, for want of a better word, their sisterhood.

The documentary shows an ugly side of the right wing intimidation they face. Among all of the self-anointed patriots who picket them, there is apparently not a glimmer of a notion of what freedom of speech means. Their opponents live in an Orwellian world in which others are granted only the freedom to agree. Heard in sound bites, seen with hate slogans on signs and t-shirts, they are not a pretty picture.

And there are the chilling backstage preparations for a Dallas concert before which they have received a death threat. To be willing to stand unprotected in front of thousands of people and sing your songs despite such a threat takes courage, and it is a brave defense of American values, although their critics cannot see it that way. “Shut Up and Sing” tells the story of three young women whose belief in America is bred in the bone, and it shames their critics.

As for Natalie Maines’ timing, maybe she simply made the mistake of being premature. The country music demographic group is bearing a disproportionate share of the burden of Iraq, with its National Guardsmen husbands, wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters absent, wounded or dead. They are paying a heavy price for a war started on lies, and are perhaps not as angry these days at Natalie for speaking truthfully.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46sn66sXaq9bq3NnWSsoZ6cenN8j3A%3D