The Chicks: Gaslighter | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- “Cancel culture” is the new bogeyman of our times. Statues of historical figures thrown into the sea, beloved films and TV shows deleted from streaming services, 150 high profile authors and academics last week wrote an open letter warning about threats to public discourse. Every op-ed section of every newspaper has carried something about the dreaded “cancel culture”. And now, to top it all off, beloved pop country dames The Dixie Chicks have been forced to drive old Dixie out of their name and are releasing their new album Gaslighter simply as The Chicks.

Well actually, it seems the trio are kinda relieved to have dropped the reference to the confederate flag from their name. “We were literally teenagers when we picked that stupid name” said member Marti Maguire last week; “I just wanted to separate myself from people who wave that dixie flag”.

The Chicks know more than most about the public attacks that have come to be known as “cancel culture”. At the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003, the band declared from the stage they were ashamed to share a home state with George W. Bush. The backlash was probably the harshest public attack on an artist since the Ayatollah placed a fatwa on Salman Rushdie. The Chicks were inundated with death threats, public gatherings were organised to do mass burnings of their CDs. Fellow country superstar Toby Keith performed concerts against a photoshopped background of The Chicks embracing Saddam Hussein.

Yet The Chicks didn’t back down, and in fact had their biggest success with the following album Taking The Long Way and single Not Ready to Make Nice. Nearly two decades later when we reflect on that disastrous war, probably the most famous act of cultural resistance in the Western world came from these unassuming southern women.

It’s been fourteen years since they released any music, but partly because of that famous conflict, The Chicks return as mainstream superstars. The cultural climate has changed, and the tale of strong women resisting a male-dominated conservative music establishment has become the stuff of legend. The group’s name change, though surely an impractical move a few weeks out from an album release, will likely only add to their profile and cred.

There’s a couple of interesting reflections The Chicks offer us on this thing we are calling “cancel culture”. One is that sometimes it’s just good to admit you were wrong. The US struggling with the legacy of the civil war is a complex issue, but The Chicks didn’t dig their heels in and demand their right to free expression. They surmised there was nothing really to be gained from holding onto their potentially offensive name, so they dropped it. Any debate over free speech should reckon with the fact that not all speech is equal - some is just more true than others, some more harmful.

The other lesson to be learned from this band, who were possibly the first of all internet cancellations, is that in open debate the truth can still win out. The Chicks had powerful forces come out against them, and yet they emerged looking dignified, justified, and ultimately more successful than they had been. The thin-skinned old intelligentsia who are not used to having their opinions disrespected could learn something from these Texan country singers - that sometimes the ability to speak out has to be fought for.

Which is what is missing from so many critiques of cancel culture. Outraged white male commentators can’t acknowledge that the monopoly of certain viewpoints in our culture has acted to cancel free expression for centuries. It’s not nice being argued with, much less being mobbed on twitter or losing your job because of a thoughtless comment; but speaking the truth has always been harder than going along with the dominant lies. Having a genuine contestation of ideas has traditionally meant being willing to speak up in the face of powerful opposition - it’s because of the courage of those willing to do so that we have the freedoms of speech many are claiming are now under threat.

And so to the album - Gaslighter is a perky if a bit bland record of pop country, with the emphasis on the pop. It has the same kind of sassy feminism of their most famous fan Taylor Swift, that of a woman putting aside traditional decorum to unashamedly criticise her ex-partner. It will probably sell loads though it is unlikely to be remembered as a classic. But in these fractious times of 2020, The Chicks have offered us a worthwhile addition to our cultural discourse which, despite the warnings of the cancel culture doomsdayers, hasn’t died yet.

- Andy Paine.
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