Second Negative

Girls Gone Wild

I watched part of the Grammys last night for the first time in I can’t remember how long. It’s not that I’ve ever really been turned off by the choices made at the music awards show, I just haven’t usually cared. I’m not an old man by any means but on an average year, I haven’t heard of half of the nominees.

That said I was pleased to see that the Dixie Chicks won several categories they were nominated in. It was a great night for the girls. And after a rough couple of years and the large scale fan backlash, it was surely a welcome “in your face” to the haters who promptly turned their televisions off. I particularly enjoyed the cut away shot of Reba McEntire after the trio won their first award. The same Reba who made an unfunny joke at a country awards show last year that drew loud applause from the largely conservative crowd. The wife summed it up best last night when noting, “I haven’t cared for Reba since that comment”. Me either. And not because I’m unable to separate political views from how I feel about an artist, but because her mean spirited “joke” tried to make it appear that the ‘Chicks has said something wrong, and that they had to somehow live it down.

Reba’s attempt to frame the fallout within her own narrow terms isn’t anything new. Some politicians do it every day. Bill O’Reilly has made a career out of it. But I don’t think it fools people like it once may have. The Dixie Chicks turned their defiance into an album and song that won multiple awards last night. And they’ve tried to shift away from a music genre that may not have come to terms with the breaking news that the ability to sing country music does not determine your political leanings.

And for that matter, they aren’t lesser Texans for not being fans of the president. Just like the Americans turning against this administration are not lesser patriots. We have different opinions, and you may not like how we express ourselves, but we’re all around you. Burn our books, trash our music, make fun of us for not liking that our state is represented by a man we loathe. But we’re still here. And in some cases, mad as hell.