Two weeks ago, I made impromptu plans with a friend to watch The Shining on Saturday night. Since neither of us had a copy I had to go to Blockbuster for the first time in ages. While there I noticed The Itty Bitty Titty Committee on the “Staff Recommendations” shelf and picked it up. When it had played at last year’s DC gay film fest I had heard that while it wasn’t a perfect lesbian movie, it was a big, fun step forward from the anxious 1990s coming out in San Fran films (see The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, Better Than Chocolate, Mango Kiss, Kissing Jessica Stein [ok, that one's in NYC]). So I rented it on a whim and watched it with a bowl of popcorn on Sunday. My thoughts: I completely agree with the general critical consensus. The reason I loved this flawed movie, though, because it made me want to be a riot grrrl.
I was born in the mid-80s; the summer than riot grrl was born I was living in Portland, Oregon, learning how to rollerblade and feed my newborn brother his bottle. I had cassette tapes of MC Hammer, Michael Jackson, and (perhaps predictively) the Indigo Girls. Although the scene was coalescing practically next door, with Bratmobile forming in Eugene, riot grrl completely passed me by. I was just too young.
I first became aware of riot grrrl in 1999, when 10 Things I Hate About You hit theaters. Good god, I loved that movie. Heath Ledger was so beautiful he made me ache. Julia Stiles was so gorgeous. And Kat was the most kick-ass high school senior I could imagine. Her favorite bands were Bikini Kill and the Raincoats.
My friends and I visited a bunch of fan sites for the movie and were surprised to learn that Bikini Kill was a real band. We’d thought it was a clever way of indicating how alt-punky Kat was. Of course, with the wisdom of age I’ve realized that she was so awesome because she was a feminist, a budding riot grrrl teaching herself the guitar, and quite possibly a baby dyke (come on, even we homos were entranced by Heath). No wonder Patrick was embarrassed to be seen at Club Skunk- it was a ladies’ club!
I sampled some Bikini Kill but it wasn’t working for me quite the way that Kathleen Hanna’s new band, Le Tigre did. Plus, I was pretty firmly wrapped up in L7, Garbage, the Sneaker Pimps, and the Donnas (and, still, the Indigo Girls). I loved the riot grrrl aesthetic and was ripe for its feminism but the music itself didn’t light a fire under me the way that more current music did.
I really found feminism a few years later, then I came out, and went away to women’s college. I listened to Dar Williams and got crushes on trans-boys and went to rallies at Beacon Hill after the Superior Court of Mass handed down the marriage decision. I read Jennifer Baumgardner and she changed my life. I was part of the third wave; I felt the fire; I was going to live my feminism and I was going to be the difference I wanted to see. When I read about the role that riot grrrl played in the very beginning of the third wave I finally had that feeling that so many friends had described before: I was certain and bitter that I had been born at the wrong time.
Why, oh why, had my parents not just gone for kids the year they married? Then I would have been 12 in 1991 and would at least have been able to hop on for the later years of riot grrrl. I would have gotten the zines and maybe even written one with my friends. I would have learned to play bass rather than the flute. I would have rocked the stage! Given that in my actual life I rocked nothing more edgy than the debate team, my fantasies about who I would have been if I’d been a riot grrrl might have been overblown. But hey, we’ve all got dreams.
Of course, things were different in the late 90s and early aughts. My friends and I didn’t worry that the boys in our life didn’t take us seriously as women–we demanded, however ineffectively, that they do so. We had Hillary Rodham Clinton and Alanis and all sorts of women role models who had proven that we could and would do it, too. Performing rage and change and smarts wasn’t as vital for us in the same way. While I wished that I could have been a riot grrrl I didn’t feel that was possible anymore.
After watching Itty Bitty Titty Committee I looked up the history of riot grrrl for the first time and was shocked to learn that “its etymological roots could be traced to the actual Mount Pleasant race riot in spring 1991.” Mount Pleasant? That’s my neighborhood! Proof positive that I really was born to be a riot grrrl.
Turns out, the Mount P riot was instigated by an altercation between a black policewoman and a Salvadoran resident (things haven’t changed, for all that 20 years have passed). Two nights of rioting followed the incident, with the neighborhood’s Latino community and hipster types taking to the streets to protest and the DC Metro Police responding with tear gas and rubber bullets. It was the worst racial violence in DC since Dr. King’s assassination, and it was headline news across the country. On the west coast, Bratmobile’s Jen Smith wrote about it in a letter, angry and wanting to respond. “This summer’s going to be a girl riot.”
I’ve been putting together a riot grrrl station on Pandora since I watched Itty Bitty and read up on the movement. It’s still true that I can’t really be one now. I really was born too late. Le Tigre split up and Kathleen Hanna married a Beastie Boy. Bratmobile’s members have been in tons of later bands but haven’t been up to much lately. Sleater-Kinney broke up and Carrie Brownstein works for NPR. The years of Revolution Girl Style Now! are over, much as I wish otherwise.
This post has been tumbling up in my head for a while, but I haven’t had time to write. So it seemed like fate when I played my most recent All Songs Considered podcast in the middle of last week. Carrie Brownstein joined Bob Boylen and co. to do a special episode called, “Do Record Labels Matter?” While in the past they have danced around Carrie’s role as a feminist icon and one of the best female guitarists in rock history, they have never come right out and discussed what it was like to be part of Sleater-Kinney until this episode. She was kind of embarrassed in an adorable way. The first label she featured was her old one, Kill Rock Stars, and she featured Bikini Kill’s “New Radio.”
I had known that Kill Rock Stars was important in the riot grrrl movement, but I hadn’t realized the scope of its roster. Bikini Kill. Sleater-Kinney. Nirvana. Elliott Smith. The Gossip. Harvey Danger. The Decemberists. Geez!
So here I am, newly relaunched on my policy career path, with a plan to go buy some more business casual blouses and shoes in a few hours, and a life that is surprisingly domestic, but I still wish I could have been a riot grrrl. Even though I was too young when it was a driving force of feminism and rock music, it kindles that wonderful fiery, passionate, youthful spirit of change and movement. Unlike the C(i)A of Itty Bitty I am not going to make zines or engage in semi-violent protests against the patriarchal hegemony, but I am going to keep playing my riot grrrl Pandora station and dancing around, wishing I could dial back the clock about 20 years. Revolution Girl Style Now!!!
