Whipping the Pussy Riot Grrrl Act

“Riot Grrrl, in a conscious response to second-wave feminists’ rejection of the word “girl,” reclaimed it with pride — and also in parody. Songs, performances, and fashion statements mocked the depictions of feminine innocence and compliance served to us in the face of discrimination, exploitation, and endemic sexual abuse.” — My Riot Grrrl by Johanna Fateman

Powerful words that reverberate inside cemented walls where two Pussy Riot members were imprisoned for 21-months, released in what appeared to be a pre-Sochi Olympic “publicity stunt,” and which culminated in a Cossack “pussy whipping” that went viral in a music video the very next day (February 20, 2014).

I won’t lie. When I watched the actual footage of the Cossacks accosting Pussy Riot, I cried — but then got enraged at the horrific absurdity of the Russian Police pepper spraying young women and beating them with whips for singing a song of protest! But it hasn’t stopped there. Recently, two members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina sustained chemical burns and head injuries after an attack at a McDonald’s by men (wearing patriotic symbols) who threw trash and shot green paint using syringes.

Women in Russia hold a dual role straight out of the TV series Mad Men — at once carrying the nation on a day-to-day basis while being relatively absent from public life. Outside the home, young women exist to look pretty. They are expected to have babies and cook and clean. They are not supposed to speak up. They are definitely not there to usher in change. By masking their faces, occupying public spaces and raising their voices, Pussy Riot is challenging the entire social order — not just the men to whom their anger has been directed.

These demeaning and barbaric acts against Pussy Riot remind me of just how gut-wrenchingly spot on Kathleen Hanna of the punk girl band Bikini Kill was when she shouted out to her audiences:

“All girls to the front! I’m not kidding. All girls to the front. All boys be cool, for once in your life. Go back… Back. Back.”

A flip (off) to the script, her words speak loudly and proudly of female empowerment and to the right of female safety while also calling out male privilege. In fact, the necessity of her words is even more apparent when you listen to a later exchange in the 2013 documentary, The Punk Girl, directed by Sini Anderson:

Guy in audience:

“I don’t think it’s a problem, because most of the girls ask for it.”

Kathleen Hanna:

“How do they ask for it?”

Response from guy in audience:

“The way they act… the way they, uh, I can’t say the way they dress, ’cause that’s their own personal choice. Some dumb hoes, these butt rocker bitches walking down the street… They’re asking for it. They deny it but it’s true.”

The attacks against Pussy Riot inspired me to reflect back on this film, and to also consider the wider impact of the Riot Grrrl Movement instigated by Bikini Kill in the early 90’s via their political lyrics, zines and confrontational live shows.

It also triggered memories about my art school days, immersed in the feminist art of Barbara Kruger, Guerrilla Girls, Karen Finley, Jenny Holzer and Kathy Acker – all of whom made work that showed me the power of words and the female body as a vehicle for activism and political protest. But there is a safety issue here that still needs more addressing.

It’s rather frightening to consider that feminist artists — even today — might be afraid to create or do whatever the hell they want in the public sphere.  Hopefully, what happened to Pussy Riot makes us want to keep fighting, speaking up and challenging the status quo. Just imagine if all the artists listed above were active in Russia today. Not only would they be risking prosecution for “Hooliganism,” but also risking themselves as potential targets for angry or violent men. It still holds true that when pushing back against male privilege the world gets a bit uglier and a lot more unsafe.

In an interview by Pitchfork in 2012, Hanna explicitly cites Pussy Riot as the most important band of the decade. On her website this comment pretty much says it all:

“SERIOUSLY THEY ARE IN A FUCKING CAGE!!!”

Her words resonate far outside the physical parameters of a jail cell, and evoke images of the metaphorical and societal cages women continue to be placed in — our beauty, sexuality and gender roles. In another clip, Hanna belts out more girl rage on stage:

“Liberated from the cage… That was a metaphor. I know they have go-go dancers in this cage sometimes… Well, fuck you.”

Power to the voice. In 1989, Hanna travelled to Seattle to meet Kathy Acker, an experimental punk author who wrote brilliantly and unabashedly about abuse, incest, and other forms of sexual extremity. After bluffing her way into an interview, Hanna explained that she was interested in spoken-word performance and in writing. Acker bluntly told her that if she wanted to be heard she needed to perform in a band.

While Acker’s words inspired the making of a punk band, two decades later, Bikini Kill and the Riot Grrrl scene would greatly influence the aesthetics of Pussy Riot’s confrontational style, as well as on their prankster performance art. As their moniker suggests, the band has drawn proudly from provocative precedents such as Hole, Dickless, and Honey Bear. Ironic girl humour that mocks conventions of female sexuality and identity while inserting insult and aggression into the semiology. Brilliant, beautiful and brash.

There is also a similarly disturbing, yet comical, incongruity in seeing Pussy Riot lined up in an array of brightly coloured dresses, topped with knitted balaclavas, and wildly acting out atop iconic churches or on the ground in Red Square. It is delightfully subversive  (even devilish) for a girl punk band to wear knitted masks during raucous performances. It brings to mind the pink knitted land mines of Barbara Hunt or Barbosa Gubo’s hand-stitched images of women putting on make-up or sewing themselves closed. Donning a dazzling array of girlish domesticated garb, Pussy Riot transforms their collective into a colourful legion of punk girl warriors.

Hanna has spoken about the power of Pussy Riot members donning ski masks — a leaderless feminist performance art project that conjures up thoughts of the Guerrilla Girls who hid their faces so as not lose their jobs or ruin their status in the art world (as low as their status probably was). For Pussy Riot, it was to avoid jail and violence. Asserting themselves as “loud and proud” Russian feminists has also meant risking their safety, their voices and their freedom.

“Katya, Masha and I are in jail but I don’t consider that we’ve been defeated… The cost of taking part in creating history is always staggeringly high for people. But that taking part is the very spice of human life.”

— Excerpt from Pussy Riot’s Closing Statements in Court

Ironically, in 2013, The Punk Girl: A film about Kathleen Hanna, premiered at SXSW in Austin alongside a documentary on Pussy Riot and a film called Spring Breakers directed by Harmony Korine. A cheesy parody, the story is about four hipster chicks who cut loose on their spring break adventure by holding up a restaurant and stealing a car — all clad in neon bikinis, pink balaclavas with unicorns and automatic Glocks. In his usual style, Korine recasts, perverts, and transforms an American coming-of-age story. But let’s get real. It’s hipster sexism wrapped in gratuitous satire. A movie that literally comes from the same perverted view as the Girls Gone Wild videos.

In a conversation with The Winehouse Mag, Director Siri Anderson talks about how Hanna appears in her film [in footage from the 90’s] wearing a ski mask when doing a media blackout. Twenty years later, Pussy Riot, puts on knitted masks for the sole purpose of performing political art inspired by the Riot Grrrl movement. It’s a striking tribute that clearly shows the arc and power of feminist artists over a couple of decades — and thankfully, they both exist in stark contrast to the sexism dripping off the screen in Korine’s film — which by the way — received a rave review from the New York Times. “Oh em gee! That is, like, totally gross!”

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