Forget the Jerry McGuire's lame gooey packaged tag line. Girls Rock DVD had me at: "I'm not a person like Hillary Duff who just wants to be famous." This documentary, heralded at the Seattle film festival, peels back the Clearasil and cherry-pop flavored lip gloss, to offer a just-this-side of voyeuristic (but in a good way) peek inside the makings of a female music mega-goddess---or, as it turns out, inside the machinations of female musical journeys into self-confidence and self-acceptance. Which is not to say Girls Rock is the estrogen-propelled version of Spinal Tap. Once you get past the contradiction in physics—namely how can a 65 pound tadpole of a girl hold let alone play a 25 pound electric guitar without triggering a string of pratfalls worthy of Jackass (a Jillass?) --- the documentary manages to inform without being condescending, or worse, being cutesy. Through the wise, yet winsome eyes, unselfconscious and spontaneous gesticulations and gyrations, and inter-relations with thrown together band mates and instructors, we learn the innermost thoughts, hopes, dreams and sadly, emotional bruisings of a handful of the 100 girls gathered for the event.
Aged between 8 and 18, the girls' backgrounds, home-life, and personal struggles and challenges—from friendless school life to stints in rehab (their own and their parents') are laid bare, surprisingly with little hint of After School Special story arc or neat-and-tidy happily ever after ending. The final day of the week long adventure caps off with a concert before a crowd of 750. Though the show itself appears to be a tad too quickly glossed over, it does manage to display the range of talent of its "stars". The song topics too---from the Kyoto Accord to chickenpox-- offer an intriguing snapshot of the next generation of rockers.
The girls are given instruction by noted rockers Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney as well as Beth Ditto from The Gossip among others. The brilliant Laura K Newman (according to fellow antiMusic writer Morley Seaver) does a mini concert for the campers which shows that dazzling guitar work and a crazed stage presence are not the sole domain of the male persuasion.
Interspersed with mixed media presentations of the depressing and oft-repeated girls and poor self-image stats, the music camp is, or at least seems to be, as much about how to love yourself and the package you come in, as it is about stage presentation, lyrical weightiness, and musical prowess.
Would a boys or even a unisex music camp include a self-defense class in which girls are prodded to yell "NO" with each physical blow? Perhaps the question should be: would such a class be considered essential for anything but an all-girl camp? But enough philosophizing. Girls Rock is a balanced, somewhat brave, definitely entertaining and worthy look-see. Ditto the DVD feature revealing a well-crafted if not earth-shattering update of the film's principal interviewees, three years after the project was first screened. Perhaps the truest goal --- and one Girls Rock seems to have achieved thanks to the producers' and directors' keen choice of featured campers --- is to acknowledge the powerful universality of a comment by one of the camp's young instructors:" Everyone needs to feel like someone gets them—even if it's only for 15 minutes." Long live rock n roll---if only for 15 minutes.
