Riot Grrrl:
Riot Grrrl was an underground feminist punk movement that started in the early 1990s, and is often associated with third-wave feminism. Third-wave feminism is a term identified with several diverse strains of feminist activity and study. In addition to this, Riot Grrrl was also seen as a sculpture including political action and activist movement. The typical instruments of this genre were electric guitar, bass and drums, with their songs dealing with feminine issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality and female empowerment .They also promoted the DIY culture and vegetarianism and anti-capitalism were big punk activist-topics of theirs. The Riot Grrrl culture encouraged girls who didn't know how to sing or play to start bands, and encouraged such DIY as making their own clothing. Huggy Bear, Voodoo Queens and Bikini Kill were some of the bands associated with the genre. The feminist voices of these bands were often heard in riots and protests.
Riot Grrrl was associated with the label ‘Kill Rock Stars’ which is an independent record label with leftist, feminist, and anti-war qualities. The label worked with Riot Grrl artists such as Huggy Bear and Bikini Thrill. By the mid-nineties the genre had severely slowly changed and came to an end. Many within the movement felt that the mainstream media had completely misrepresented their message, and that the aspects of Riot Grrrl had been over used by the likes of the Spice Girls and their "girl power" message. However, the influence of the genre can still be felt in many aspects of indie and feminist punk rock culture.
Bikini Kill:
Bikini Kill was a popular Riot Grrrl band in America who are referred to the leaders of the movement of the genre. They formed in Washington by Kathleen Hanna, Kathi Wilcox and Tobi Vail who were all former school mates at the time. The group worked with Joan Jett of The Runaways, and Jett wrote the song "New Radio/Rebel Girl" for the band. Bikini Kill was one of the first bands to declare their mosh pits as "women only" as most of the time sexual assaults from males would occur predominately in the dancing/skanking pits. They were criticised in a song called ‘Why I Liked Bikini Kill’ by J Church who featured the song on their bands message. Titles of their albums and song releases are quite dramatic and make a statement to their music; ‘There’s A Dyke In The Pit’, ‘Pussy Whipped’ and ‘Revolution Girl Style Now’. These song titles provoke sexual innuendo, and the revolution of their music to over throw men and free women. The title ‘Pussy Whipped’ is a parody to the way men talk to their masculine friends, a renowned saying for a man being under control by a women is ’pussy whipped’ which is significant through this song .This shows their passion to their messages in the music, and how they were determined to let women have a voice in their local scenes making this music a starting point. Tobi Vail in an interview said how the band as “individuals we respect and utilize and subscribe to a variety of different aesthetics, strategies, and beliefs, both political and punk-wise, some of which are probably considered 'riot girl.”. Kathleen Hanna and Tobi Vail were both ironically linked to male rock singers. Hanna was married to Ad-rock from the Beastie Boys and Vail was linked to Nirvana's Kurt Cobain for some time. This immediately changes the meaning of their music as they are associated with dominate male artists who are rivals to them and their empowering voices. I think after this, them portraying themselves as independent and empowering other women could be questioned as it shows weakness in their characters.
"When she talks, I hear the revolutions
In her hips, there's revolutions
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her kiss, I taste the revolution"
This is part of a verse in Bikini Kills ‘Rebel Girl’ single and imply a strong sexual aspect. It elaborates how the narrator wants to almost be this wonderful girl, and how she’s powerful not in actions, but language 'when she talks'. Its almost implying that they don’t need violence to get their message across to audiences but the meaning in their speech is dominate enough. This is like the saying ‘actions speak louder than words‘ which is extremely true and also sets them up as wiser and more powerful than men in the industry. This song promotes homosexuality 'They say she's a dyke, but I know' and activism 'I hear the revolution' creating more meaning and underlying messages to pick up on. The lyrics are making not only females but men shout out 'I really like you, I really wanna be your best friend' getting their feminist anger across! The superior thing about Bikini Kill was that their message came clearly in words and lyrics.
KATHLEEN HANNA:
Hanna was the lead singer of Bikini Kill and worked as an exotic dancer to support herself and her photography, and also volunteered at a women’s shelter before her musical path. She was interested in feminism from the age of 9 when her mother took her to Washington to watch feminist icon Gloria Steinem who left an everlasting impression on her. This passion progressed as she said she found her copy of her mothers 'The Feminine Mystique'. This book is also referenced in the film 'Ten Things I Hate About You' where the lead role is an all round Riot Grrrl listener (The Raincoats a Riot Grrrl punk band is her favourite) and feminist, where she references this book in the film. Kathleen and her mother's views on feminism were done 'quietly' as her father did not approve. Hanna states “We wanted to start a magazine, and Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman from the band Bratmobile had started a little fanzine called Riot Grrrl and we were writing little things for it. I'd always wanted to start a big magazine with really cool, smart writing in it, and I wanted to see if the other punk girls in D.C. that I was meeting were interested in that. So I called a meeting and found a space for it, and it just turned into this sort of consciousness-raising thing. I realized really quickly that a magazine wasn't the way to go. People wanted to be having shows, and teaching each other how to play music, and writing fanzines, so that started happening. It got some press attention, and girls in other places would be like "I wanna do that. I wanna start one of those."
She showed her artistic skills through her photography and opened a small art gallery for pleasure. She quoted “I feel completely left out of the realm of everything that is so important to me. And I know that this is partly because punk rock is for and by boys mostly and partly because punk rock of this generation is coming of age in a time of mindless career-goal bands.” This showed her passion towards the punk rock era as after this she then hooked up with Toby Vail and Kathi Wilcox to form the beginning of the Riot grrrl movement in Bikini Kill.
TOBY VAIL:
Toby Vail was the drummer of Bikini Thrill who currently has her own indie cassette label, and is a founder of Ladyfest. Lady fest is a volunteer-based music and arts festival for female independent musicians, spoken word poets, visual artists, and authors, for which most of the proceeds are donated directly to non-profit organisations. The festival also holds workshops for girls on everything from music lessons, to how to make a zine, to self defence courses. She is also a founder of Bands against Bush, promoting and organizing activism and direct action against George W. Bush. She was also strongly associated with Kurt Cobain her former lover. His music is highly influenced by Vail, the Nirvana hit ‘Aneurysm’ claimed that this song was written in an attempt to win Vail back, the line "love you so much it makes me sick" referring to the fact that when they first met, she made Cobain so nervous that it once made him vomit. In addition to this ‘Smells Like Teen Sprit’ was influenced by Teen spirit, the name of Toby's deodorant she was wearing at the time.
Vail calims- “every show we played was like a war, cos like guys would try to beat us up and stuff, it was really violent, and we were really - we had a lot of fans and we didn't have any crowd control, we didn't have a manager, we'd just play these crazy places like bowling alleys and then cram like 600 people in there, you know, no security.”
Modern Riot Grrrl:
Nowadays there has been a progression of women playing in the rock industry and new feminist singers such as Beth Ditto and Florence and The Machine have followed in the foot steps of Kate Bush and Riot Grrrl. Beth Ditto is the lead singer of punk rock indie band The Gossip. Ditto is a good example of a role model for women today as she elaborates on feminism in her music with her outstanding voice and doesn‘t promote bodily image, making her an influential women in today‘s music scene. She supports LGBT and many feminist causes, and is known for her unique, ‘obese‘ acclaimed image. In 2006 she won Coolest person in rock by NME and nominated sexiest women of the year also. Beth Ditto is a recent version of a Riot Grrrl almost, created from her powerful lyrics of promoting Gay rights ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ and feminist theories. As well as Bikini Kill, Kill Rock Stars also released the Gossip’s second album ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’. She wrote on the riot girl message board “A movement formed by a handful of girls who felt empowered, who were angry, hilarious, and extreme through and for each other. Built on the floors of strangers' living rooms, tops of Xerox machines, snail mail, word of mouth and mix tapes, riot grrrl reinvented punk. Now I am a musician, a writer, a whole person”. This quote from Ditto represents the women from her generation and her opinion on the movement. She seems to be enforcing that the punk rock era of riot girls allowed women to be what they are today. If Riot Grrrl wasn‘t as successful and powerful, would female musicians be who they are today? New acts such as The Raincoats and The Donnas are also examples of a female Riot Grrrl punk band.
This image below of Beth Ditto on the cover of Love shows the readers who Beth Ditto really is and how she is not afraid of what she looks like or what people say about on her relating to her appearance. It presents her femininity but also her masculinity, for example the anchor tattoo on her upper left arm, to me although is quite common a while ago would have been highly linked to men. This reinforces how our culture is changing and new ways are accepted and become more common. Progressing from this, gender is constructed by what culture defines male and females and as culture is changing, masculinity and femininity become pluralised. This means there are many different versions and meanings of each word as it has become flexible. The issue is based around 'Icons of our generation' and on the front you can see there is a list of famous celebrities such as Pixie Geldof. This is interesting as other icons on this issue are actors and models encouraging style and appearance yes but are not empowering people who are changing our world, like the messages of Bikini Kill.
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