June 5th, 2014 
Grace Duffy 
When I was in college, I went through a phase where “Sugar” by Bikini Kill was the answering machine message on my phone. I was young and nonchalent, so myself and my two best friends recorded ourselves singing it (woefully) and set it as the message that all rejected callers would hear. It seems like a lifetime ago, but it’s a moment I was rather vividly transported back to after viewing The Punk Singer tonight.
Sini Anderson’s documentary about Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of punk band Bikini Kill and later Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin, originally premiered at SXSW last year but only just got a theatrical release in Ireland and the UK, and I’m ecstatic to have been given an opportunity to support it. Films like this feel refreshing and radical, for no matter how much time I spend in cinemas it’s profoundly rare to be confronted with such an inspiring tale – let alone one that’s true-life and focused on such an arresting (female!) subject.
I originally became involved in journalism through music. Like everyone else, I was a music obsessive in my late teens, immersing myself completely in all the delicious darkness and intoxicating romanticism of the Goth subculture. The breathtaking odes of Goth and symphonic metal were what first inspired me to pick up a pen (or rather, a keyboard) and get scribbling properly, after years of having no creative outlet at a tiny rural school. I came to music a little bit later than everyone else, methinks. I had the standard nu-metal phase when I was about 12 or 13 but my interest dramatically waned thereafter, owing no doubt to my family’s relatively minimal circumstances and consequential lack of internet and dedicated music channels. I listened to classical music and movie soundtracks and precious little else for years, before finding my passions reawoken by a strange combination of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Aerosmith, and Delta Goodrem. Those three combined got me through my Leaving Cert, and on my gap year before college I discovered a number of wonderful things – internet, a paying job, ensuing freedom to make my own purchases and, most importantly, Green Day. Green Day were pretty massive about that time – I finished secondary school in 2005 and the juggernaut that was American Idiot had dropped the year before. My sister was already a fan, and after hearing distant snippets of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Holiday” for long enough, I picked up an album and was hooked. This in turn led me to discover My Chemical Romance, the great musical odyssey of my life (I have a tattoo which speaks to this), and in turn, through the magazines and blogs I read to learn more about them, female-fronted bands like Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica.
When I went to college, I met one of my best friends in the form of a post-grunge Courtney Love obsessive, whose stylistic persona at the time owed a great deal to one Kathleen Hanna. She in turn introduced me to riot grrrl, providing mixtapes and burned copies of Bikini Kill and Babes in Toyland, all of which culminated in the above emboldened decision to spruce up the answering machine message.
Someone from the law school rang me one day and got that message, commenting nervously on it after the beep. The law school usually only rang to say they’d messed something up so I like to think Kathleen’s surly vocals gave him a brief bit of respite from angry students and bad news.
When I first heard about The Punk Singer, I found myself reflecting on the power of riot grrrl as a whole. I’d always considered myself a feminist, but it was only in the past few years that I’d started reading more about the histories and origins and key figures of the movement, learning about the many different waves and influences throughout its ongoing history. Punk music had always been seen, at least in part, as a social movement, with bands making vicious commentaries on everything from society to politics to religion. Riot grrrl took all that energy and filtered it through an unapologetically feminist lens, colouring the raw abrasive shards of punk with the voices of women. And these weren’t just any voices, either. These were brutal, caustic, murderous soliloquys, violently condemning the rape and abuse culture in which women continue to suffer and decrying the entitled, patriarchal attitude of society. You can’t listen to something like the aforementioned “Sugar” and not hear the rage, uncontained and uncompromising, against a culture of male gratification in which women are expected to be docile and meek and eagerly cooperative. There’s a monologue in The L Word which springs to mind right now, but for language reasons I’ll have to simply provide the link and let you hear it for yourself.
In the film, Hanna discusses the way journalists would constantly try to link her fierce musical stance back to incidences of abuse in her childhood. She vehemently condemns the reporter who claimed (inaccurately) that her father had raped her and speaks harshly about the condescending reviews they received from media outlets – including fellow women. The band went on a media blackout for a while, refusing to indulge a dogged band of writers who sought to pit them against fellow women and imply that their legitimate frustration stemmed solely from incidences of violence. It’s funny, really, that even when speaking loudly and dominantly in favour of women, writers still felt the need to link it all back to a man. To be clear, feminism is a social movement fuelled by the ongoing prejudices women suffer at the hands of our patriarchal society, but to imply that they had to be broken first to find their voices is to imply that women are incapable of feeling anger without victimhood. We don’t have to be victims – though disgustingly huge amounts of women are and continue to be – to feel what it’s like to be judged, and dismissed, and expected to comply with pre-existing standards for the simple act of identifying as a woman. Last year’s superb Foxfire depicted a group of girls who form a gang to protect one another, but The Punk Singer‘s interviewees argue for solidarity of a different kind.
The Punk Singer highlights the abuse and violence Bikini Kill and Hanna in particular were forced to handle on an ongoing basis. Upsetting an established order always leads to unrest, and Bikini Kill were an unyielding force of nature. The film doesn’t go into specific details, but those raised – including vocal death threats – are enough to remind us that no woman’s voice goes unpunished. Even in this day and age, when a depressing number of people feel that the genders have equal rights (spoiler: we don’t), there are vivid reminders as to the discomfort a confident and outspoken woman engenders in other people, especially men. Female writers, critics, even industry figures all have to deal with threats of horrific violence on a daily basis. Just last weekend, a lunatic went on a misogynistic killing spree in California, and even with all the evidence of his 137-page manifesto and hateful online rants people are only too eager to blame the incident on his being reportedly mentally ill – not a product of a society that hates women. The #yesallwoman hashtag exploded in the incident’s wake, illustrating the real, everyday prejudices we as women must deal with, but even that is an inversion of #notallmen, a common reaction by men more intent on hijacking a conversation about sexism than actually engaging with women’s experiences.
No other social movement is expected to sugarcoat itself to accommodate the feelings of the oppressor. Feminism has always been branded as a particularly insidious threat, as by disrupting the status quo women are necessarily stepping out of the mould in which society has confined them. Yet, social conditioning also ensures that a large number of feminists are expected to reaffirm that they don’t hate men, they just hate some men, or the institutions they’ve created. We’re allowed to be angry, so long as we qualify it in a way that doesn’t uproot the comfort of the forces we’re trying to protest. Your body is a battleground, but don’t upset the menz.
Yet, despite all this scintillating bravado, the most affecting part of The Punk Singer isn’t Hanna’s crusades with Bikini Kill – or even her heartfelt solo release as Julie Ruin and later work with Le Tigre and The Julie Ruin. The diversity of these bands shows Hanna’s own unbridled creativity, and the sheer extent of her voice. But it’s when the film gives us an insight into her diagnosis with Lyme disease that we see just how much her voice and her art means to her. She speaks about how she told her bandmates in Le Tigre that she was done with the band and claimed it was because she had nothing else to say. The real reason, however, was that the gruelling tour schedule was beginning to take its toll on her body which, unbeknownst to her, was already in the throes of Lyme disease. She wasn’t diagnosed for a long time and the uncertainty made her feel all the more restless, adrift as she tried to look to the future. Hanna is refreshingly frank about the reality of her condition, documenting its physical effects in a number of candid video snippets filmed by her husband, Adam Horowitz. It’s rare to see a woman be so forthright in her experiences – cinema is typically so dominated by men that any kind of sincere, insightful, truthful depiction of a woman’s life is a rarity. Granted, The Punk Singer is a documentary, but Hanna’s condition is a painful one that impacts upon her neurologically as well as physically. It would be easy to choose not to show it, such is the discomfort in which it leaves her. Instead, Hanna puts it forward clearly, illuminating a bravery and indomitable spirit that keeps her intent on performing. It was recently announced that her condition had deteriorated, leading to the cancellation of a number of shows; a disheartening setback to a woman only too eager to defy the odds and fight the good fight.
What may be the single most refreshing part about The Punk Singer is the sheer absence of male voices. Hanna was determined that women and women only would recount her story, such that the only male commentator in the film is her husband. Figures as iconic as Kim Gordon and Joan Jett share their memories of the singer, remembering her as a passionate and radical figure who helped birth a movement that would go on to change the world.
We still need feminism, intersectional feminism, and loud, insistent movements for women’s rights more powerfully than ever. The music industry hasn’t stopped being sexist, but Hanna and her fellow artists have helped to open up a world at best unwelcoming and at worst outright hostile to women, particularly women artists. It’s not just in their anthems and volleys but in their example – of being strong, principled, courageous women who stood down adversity and fought on to tell the tale. Hanna’s story is a fascinating and compelling one that serves to illustrate how truly remarkable a woman’s life can be both on stage and on film. These are the giants’ shoulders on which our generation must stand. When she talks, I hear the revolutions.
Written by Grace Duffy
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