SHUT UP & SING DIRECTOR ENCOURAGES SPEAKING OUT

At a time in America where entertainers are using their concert time to voice their politics as well as sing, The Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing cou…

At a time in America where entertainers are using their concert time to voice their politics as well as sing, The Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing couldn’t be more timely. Two time Academy award winning filmmaker Barbara Kopple agrees that artists exist to disturb.

Radio station owners Cumulus Media issued a ban on Dixie Chicks music in all of its nearly 50 country music stations, reportedly disciplining two of it’s DJs for defying the ban. Barbara says it was a scary time for the girls who were just trying to speak their mind.

“I totally agree with it. The Dixie Chicks are women who are so strong, so talented and so remarkable. When the conservative country music stations picked The Dixie Chicks to mess around with they picked the wrong women.”

The film follows the lives and careers of the Dixie Chicks over a period of three years. Not everything that was shot made it onto the film. Barbara has a rule, if it doesn’t progress the story forget about it, it can always go on the DVD. Shut Up & Sing opens tomorrow in theaters. rn

“I think that somebody for speaking their mind, for saying what they felt could be boycotted from the radio, could have their CDs smashed and could receive death threats. That’s the scariest to me. We have a cowboy mentality in the United States and we’ve got to end that. We’ve got to start to have a dialogue and free expression.”