Riot Grrrls

Before the Spice Girls days of "girl power," there was riot grrrls. Arguably at the forefront of this movement was the all-riot grrrl band, Bikini Kill, though they had an uneasy relationship with mainstream media as being seen as the "leaders" of the riot grrrl movement and called for a media blackout at one point.

The above video is heavy into third wave feminist language and anger about sexuality, gender, revolution-- "when she talks, I hear the revolution, in her walk, a revolution's coming, in her hips, there's revolutions, in her kiss, I taste the revolution." However, it draws upon a number of more established, "traditional" elements, including punk culture, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture, traditional rock, and previous all-girl/women bands in the United States.

The 1920s and 1930s saw an emergence of a number of all-female vocalist and musician bands such as the all-girl jazz band The Ingenues. The emergence of musical trends that would be called "rock n roll" saw the introduction of rock bands like The Runaways, whom Bikini Kill explicitly hold as a major influence. The Runaways were an all-teenage girl band in the 1970s, who eventually split over creative differences (amongst them that Joan Jett wanted to shift to a "punk rock" influence/aesthetic/genre, while other band members wanted to stay a hard rock band). Joan Jett of The Runaways produced the above song, "Rebel Girl," for Bikini Kill.

Perhaps one of the biggest influences of the emergence of a number of all-girl bands with a third wave aesthetic and politics was punk rock's Do-It-Yourself culture (influences in turn by trends from the 1960s and 70s regarding renovating affordable housing, saving money, and having a smaller impact on the environment). Rather than rely on a consumer culture to get goods and services, DIY culture sought to use and develop the implicit abilities of everyday people. That meant that certain aspects of "high art" wasn't reserved for elite musicians, or even "professionals" with training. Large elements of punk culture was proud in a kind of lack of knowledge of the mastery of different instruments; that anyone could play; that the art and the music and the message were too important to be reserved for an elite class of music.

Punk rock developed as an outgrowth of DIY culture and garage bands; riot grrrl and third wave feminist punk rock nonetheless had a great deal of similarity to its punk and rock origins, though it sought to make it a more women-friendly space by, for example, insisting that the boys stay out of the mosh pit and the girls come in front at Bikini Kill performances. The anger and the raw emotion was still there; just intentionally regulated by musicians attempting to shape and fuse gender to the political lens of punk rock. Though people have been self-publishing for years, the resources and technology to mass-produce "zines", or DIY "magazines" was available to this growing movement and remains a social justice staple today in discussions of "making our own media."

The continuity of these politics and music influences can be seen in the "post-punk" group Le Tigre that Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna formed, as well as a number of other groups. I was surprised but excited when I saw "Rebel Girl" on a playlist for the popular game Rock Band (of course, they bleeped out the "dyke" part). Riot grrrl was an intentionally "underground" pop music phenomenon (not unlike the grunge scene that spawned Nirvana, with whom they had personal and musical ties), so it is interesting to see the ways in which it is constructed by mainstream media and current popular games like Rock Band.