Shut Up and Sing.

SHUT UP AND SING Directed by Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck (The Weinstein Company, 2006)

When Dixie Chicks vocalist Natalie Maines announced to a London audience in 2003 that she and her bandmates were "ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas" she never expected this small protest of America's impending war in Iraq would provoke a career-shattering rage from millions of country and western fans, or that hundreds of conservative radio stations would develop an allergy to freedom of speech and collaborate in a cowardly corporate boycott of one of America's most popular bands. But, as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos could have told the three country girls from the rolling hills of Texas, nobody likes a spunky prophet.

Tracking the aftershocks of Natalie's comment and the misbehavior of tens of thousands of fans and radio stations, the musical documentary Shut Up and Sing follows the Dixie Chicks as they return to the United States, face the ire of their former fans and the vitriol of conservative pundits, and try (at first) to make peace and then to get on with their personal and professional lives. In the course of these misadventures, the Dixie Chicks discover the costs of daring to speak up against America's most disastrous war, and audiences get a sad lesson in the heartland's intolerance for free speech and political discourse. As much a civics as a music lesson, this film shows all too well how ready many of us are to jump on war's bandwagon, and how ugly the mob gets once its ire is provoked.

Two years later Natalie's complaint about Bush and the war have become the rallying cry of Congress and nearly every presidential hopeful (save John McCain), and her shame is shared by millions who felt betrayed by lies about WMDs and links to Al Qaeda. Maybe that's why the Dixie Chicks took home a bucket of Grammys this year and why this DVD is so popular. The good news is that they're not even dead and already we're erecting statues. Maybe our learning curve is shortening.