Shut Up & Sing travels with the Dixie Chicks from the peak of their popularity as the national-anthem-singing darlings of country music and top-selling female recording artists of all time, through their infamy after the anti-Bush comment made by the group’s lead singer in 2003. Oscar-winning documentary director Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck follow the Dixie Chicks from 2003-2006 when they were under political attack and received death threats, all while continuing to live their lives, have children, and of course make music. At a time when the United States is fighting for democracy and freedom overseas, Shut Up & Sing raises questions about our own right to freedom of speech and documents the difficulty of having a genuine public debate on international policy in the political climate leading up to the Iraq War. The film also illustrates musicians’ power to influence and inform the public discourse on significant policy issues. Michael Rechtshaffen praises Shut Up & Sing in The Hollywood Reporter: “A bracingly candid documentary portrait of the artists in a career-defining transition, the film simultaneously offers a unique perspective of a nation at a similarly significant crossroads. It also happens to be a lot of fun.”
Please join us for a provocative panel discussion and Q&A session immediately following the film.
Featured Panelists:
Barbara Kopple, Co-Director and Producer, Shut up & Sing
Judd Legum, Research Director and Editor of ThinkProgress.org, the Center for American Progress
Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, “Rural strategists” and co-author of Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run ’em Out
Moderated by:
Anna Soellner, Director of Outreach and Special Events, Center for American Progress