Protest Music Post 9/11

During our class discussion about protest music that came out after 9/11, this song by P!nk came to mind.

What also came to mind, however, was how many people were vilified for protesting the war. For example, the Dixie Chicks came under fire after Natalie Maines made the simple comment that as a Texan, she was embarrassed Bush was from Texas. A media onslaught took the quote and ran with it causing the group a lot of financial damage until Maines was actually forced to apologize for her comment.

Several months later comedian Dave Chapelle made a joke about the matter commenting how he wanted to protest the war, with the punchline, "but f*** that! If they'll do that to three white women, they'll tear my black a** apart!" While Chapelle is not a singer, his somewhat quasi-reverence for the power held by the media to villify anti-war sentiments is rather interesting and brings out an important point about music and its popularity. His joke is not about any protester, but about a pop-singing protesters being excommunicated from the social privilege of fame and stardom. Granted one might argue the Dixie Chicks don't have the same popularity as "bubblegum-pop" like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, etc. but they certainly are (were) more popular than most other protest singers outside of more mainstream music (i.e. Tom Waits, Pete Seeger, and so on).

It seems this kind of backlash speaks to the power of music. By attempting to suppress protest music, pro-war conservatives (more specifically conservative media) demonstrate a kind of fear of it and its potential power within the public sphere. Perhaps a factor in Dylan's ability to stay within the popular public sphere during the '60s was by not explicitly addressing the Vietnam war.