Music Video: Dixie Chicks, Not Ready To Make Nice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dblAC5uLb8


‘Not Ready To Make Nice’ was directed by Sophie Muller and both the song and the music video are heavy influenced by a political controversy surrounding the band’s lead singer, Natalie Maines. In 2003, Maines made a comment against the US President George Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq, saying that the band were ashamed that the President was from their state, Texas and that they disagreed with the violence of it. Following this the band received death threats and lost a lot of fans, some accusing them of being ‘un-American’ and sparked a boycott of the band’s music. Maines apologised later saying that her comments were ‘disrespectful’ to George Bush. This did not really help the situation as those who were in support of her were upset that she had apologised at all. Soon after Madonna came out in support of the rights of the band to express their own opinions and postponed the release of her ‘American Life’ music video which originally featured scenes of her throwing bombs at a Bush look-a-like, changing them after seeing the public response against the Dixie Chicks. Even today the band are affected by this as many people still want to talk about it and many of their fans have not come back to them. In 2006 they released a documentary following their experiences during the 3 years after the London concert where the comments were made and are fighting against censorship.

The theme of the music video is censorship and not being allowed freedom of speech, the narrative follows this with scenes set in a classroom where Natalie stands up to speak and the other band members force her to sit and stay quiet mirroring the idea of not being able to speak out for themselves. The teacher then asks her to write lines on the board (a punishment common in American schools), she writes ‘to talk without thinking is to shoot without aiming’ which was something Natalie received in a letter from an angry fan after her comments against the war in Iraq. Other scenes show Natalie in an old fashioned mental institution which brings about social connotations of madness and painful inhumane ways of dealing with mental disorders. Also a psychiatrist Thomas Szasz claimed that the government used mental illness as a form of social control against anyone who disagreed with them or went against their ideas, he was most prominent during the 50’s and 60’s which fit’s the style of the video being set in an unspecified period during this time. Natalie resists treatment and is celebrated by her band mates, this shows the position of support from the others and also that Natalie will continue to try to speak her mind. Another theme that runs through the video is Natalie painting the others with black paint and trying to wipe the paint off her hands on her white dress but she cannot get it off. This shows how what she said affected the band as a whole and her words caused people to boycott the whole band. Not being able to get the paint off her hands symbolises her not being able to get away from it, that no matter how hard she tries or what she does she cannot change some people’s opinion of her or the consequences it has had for them all.

The performance element in the video shows the band against different coloured backgrounds (black, blue, white). The performance is much more subtle than in other videos which allows the narrative to dominate the video, this is quite common in many of the videos by the band and is a convention of country music videos. This also could be a visual interpretation of how Natalie’s comments overpowered the band’s music and many people know of them from that rather than their music and even know reporters and interviewers are more interested in this.

The video used as a background image showed black liquid colouring white which is another way of showing Natalie painting the others black, the house and picket fence draw on social connotations of ideal suburban America, the style of the house is something you would expect to see in Texas where the band is from. The fact that it is crooked shows the band feels everybody else has a skewed opinion on what is right. The bright red background contrasts against the other colours and is also has negative connotations of the devil, therefore associating the band with it.

A variety of coloured backgrounds are used, some are wide and cover the whole scene where as others are very thin and narrow which represents the narrow minded way the band were criticised for thinking differently.

All of the colours in the video are very stark and bold, lots of black, white and red are visually very impacting which makes the video very memorable.

A lot of the camera angles used in the video are straight on to the band which does not portray them in any particular way, high or low angle shots would have given a perspective for the viewer to look at them from but straight on shots allow the viewer to make up their own mind on how to view them and gives them the freedom to choose for themselves, a theme used repeatedly in the video. There are some scenes of Natalie from above which shows how she is looked down on for having her own opinion, these scenes happen early on in the video and as it progresses the shots change to be straight on, this shows how some opinions have changed, or the importance of it has. Possibly even showing how other people’s opinions changed the way Natalie saw herself. When she was not allowed her own voice she felt less than others who could, and that changed as time went on as she realised she was no less than anyone else and would fight for her right to speak freely.

All of the transitions used are straight cuts. During the introduction of the video lots of shots are shown very quickly which gives it a very harsh, raw feeling. Flashes of light and dark add to this, making it feel sharp and disjointed, matching the tone of the song. The disjointed way the clips are put together is consistent through the whole video and adds a feeling of confusion as to what is going on, this pulls the reader into the emotion of the song, as the lyrics talk about the band’s confusion to how the world became this way where those who speak out are treated in such an extreme way. The editing keeps to the pace of the music, clip changes happening to the beat of the music.

The representation of the band in this music video is mostly to strengthen the idea of them standing by what they believe even when it seems like the whole world is against them, and also that the bonds within the band are still strong (the shot of Martie and Emily holding hands is repeated three times throughout the video, as well scenes showing them celebrating the fact that Natalie has escaped from the doctors shows they are happy and in support with her behaviour).
The doctors whispering as they watch Natalie struggling against the other band members invites viewers to watch too, this is an example of voyeurism. The doctors talking about her shows how everybody was talking about them but nobody wanted to talk to them as they did not want to be associated with them for fear of being put into that position too. Also the band felt they were abandoned by the country music scene in general, as no other band stood up for them they felt that others used it to gain publicity for themselves as talking about something so controversial got them attention, but would then make a point of saying they were in support of the war and therefore against the Dixie Chicks.