Rise Up! Rock Out!

Back in November, I shared a snippet of conversations I was having with friends and acquaintances who were struggling to make sense of the election and the outcome and the world we were immediately plunged into because of it. I'm not magical so I'm wasn't immune to the same feelings my friends were feeling BUT I felt like I had a strategy in place for moving forward when the election was "done." I would ask my friend "What have you done? What are you willing to do next?" not because I wanted them to feel guilty but because I wanted them to think about how to be part of change in a way that would work for them. And maybe, by being a bit more in the world, the crippling sense of doom would go away bit by bit. That was the plan.

For me, being a "good" citizen is important. I've always believed that being socially and politically active is the point; that's how I define a good citizen. We're supposed to protest and vote and get involved in our communities. We're supposed to care about one another and this country and question our leaders. The Women's March was a powerful reminder of that as have been the countless protests and other movements that have happened since November. Social change isn't easy especially when you're covering ground you should NOT have to repeat but all of these steps are necessary so we don't end up 50 years (or more) in the past.

What's challenging is getting lost in the muck of all of these ideas and the rhetoric and the ridiculousness of a commander in chief who tweets like a teen jacked up on Mountain Dew with equally poor grammar. It's hard sometimes to find the good in the world. I know this. That's why I planned for it (because sometimes I'm a little too Type-A for my own good) and decided to commit myself to more coming off of the natural high the Women's March. I vowed to be more active within my local government (which I am doing in many ways) and to look for a local organization to either donate time or money to (or both). That's how I found Girls Rock! DC.

Celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year, Girls Rock! DC is a summer camp for girls, trans, and non-binary youth which focuses on music, music education, and social justice. The original rock camp was founded in Portland, OR and has spread around the US and the world, with rock camps in most major US cities and in countries like Japan, the UK, and Sweden. During camp week, campers take music classes, learn music history, and form a band. The bands write music together, create their band name, their aesthetic, and a song to be performed at the end of camp Showcase. They also have the opportunity to take workshops on a variety of topics and learn from one another and the camp staff.

Girls Rock! DC (GR!DC) was founded in 2007 by a group of area musicians, teachers, and community organizers to focus on the idea of building community while also rocking out. I heard about Girls Rock! DC from a volunteer at the museum. She and I were discussing getting more involved in local organizations and she mentioned GR!DC. She'd recently gone to a showcase for their adult program, We Rock!, and had thought of me because of my love of rock music and education programs (I'm always surprised by my qualifiers amongst people who know me). I did a little research, saw that they had a call out of for volunteers, and contacted the group. I did a volunteer interview, talked with a member of their leadership team via email about working on the communications team, and showed up at the first training. And then I was hooked completely.

It's rare to walk into a room of people so dedicated to something that you immediately have to tell someone else they need to be involved in this group but that is exactly what happened when I went to my first training (I texted Anita and then made her get up early to come to the showcase). It was awesome to see so many people coming together to make this camp happen. Listening to the various leadership team members talk about the program, the mission, the campers was inspiring. It's a lot of work but it makes a difference for the campers who participate. Many are experiencing not only camp for the first time, but playing a musical instrument for the first time. The camp is very representative of the area, with campers coming from all quadrants of DC, Maryland, and Virginia. It's a supportive, open, and creative space. Girls very rarely get that.

I didn't get to spend the week at camp since I started my new job (this will be remedied next summer) but I did get to spend time working on the showcase program and helping with set up at camp and at the showcase venue, the 9:30 Club. Did I not mention that? The camp showcase is at the 9:30 Club. I know, it's wild. The other volunteers I work with are awesome; I have never met a cooler, more welcoming group of humans in my life. I wasn't sure if my more Type-A personality would work within the group but it seemed to be okay at least for what I was working on throughout the last few weeks. The few campers I got to meet, primarily the members of the Youth Leadership team, were fun to talk to and hear from as they shared their camp experience.

And then there was the showcase. These bands and DJ crews (there were two crews this year) have one week to write and rehearse their song. Many of the campers are learning music for the first time and they range in age from 8-18. What they created for showcase was amazing; the songs were from the heart, timely, and full of spirit and resistance. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Here are a few samples:
from "Freedom and Justice" by Awesome Jamz-P.O.M.S
Yo, my freedom is everything, everything to me
I might even sing in it in four harmony
I got my sisters by my side
You know that they down to ride
They call me up, and they say "hey!"
We fighting for freedom and justice everyday

from Unknown Dawn's song
Don't give up 
Believe in yourself
Change what you want to change
Don't be bothered by anyone else
Try your hardest and love yourself

There was also a song called "Triggered" by Close Open Doors with a chorus that offered the suggestion of being calm and counting to nine to handle a very serious topic that happens all the time. The band handled it with humor and seriousness all at the same time. There was a lot of poetry and defiance wrapped into these songs. One of my favorite songs was from one of the younger band groups, Galaxy Starzz. It was a dreamy nugget of a song and it was about being you who are and making friends and being stars. The DJ crews were also impressive; it added a great vibe to the showcase and they were really supportive of one another on stage.

At the end of the showcase, all the campers, past and present, and the volunteers come on stage to sing the Girls Rock! DC anthem. Here's my favorite verse from the song:

Now I know I can do anything
I can DJ or play drums or sing
Come on, everyone, get up and dance
Cos the future of rock is in our hands!

Groups like Girls Rock! DC give me hope for the future. I'm excited to continue being part of this organization throughout the year and waiting anxiously for camp 2018. Until then, let's all continue to rise up and rock out!

 Photos by me

Lady Parts, Part Deux: Wonder Woman

Scene: A group of small children, ages 7-12, are playing in an enormous backyard. It's the mid-1980s and it's summertime.

Boy: I want to be Princess Leia.
Girl: You can't be Princess Leia; you're a boy. I want to be Princess Leia.
Boy: I can be Princess Leia if I want to be.
Girl: Fine, then I'll be Wonder Woman.
Boy: Wonder Woman doesn't have anything to do with Star Wars.
Girl: I don't care. I'm Wonder Woman and you can't make me change.
Boy: Fine. It's stupid but fine.
Girl: Wonder Woman isn't stupid. Stop being mean. Princesses aren't mean.
Boy: (Grumbles and walks away.)
Girl: (Stands in a defiant Wonder Woman pose.)

End scene.

This particular scene happened a few times when I was growing up. One of my friends always wanted to be Princess Leia when we played Star Wars in the backyard. I would always get mad because he was a boy and in my 7 year old mind, boys couldn't be princesses (Note: boys and girls can be whatever they want. Adult me gets it). Then one day I decided to be Wonder Woman instead and the world felt right. They were both princesses and strong and powerful. If he wanted to be Princess Leia, he could be. I wanted to be an Amazon.

Wonder Woman is my favorite superhero; always has been. Hers was the only comic I read regularly back when I read comics regularly and she was the only reason I watched cartoons like Superfriends and Galactic Guardians. I found Batman and Superman and all the other dudes exhausting in their dark pasts and unnecessary doubt of Wonder Woman's abilities. She's the only DC comic hero I enjoy. I watched the Lynda Carter series in syndication; she is the reason I wanted to be Wonder Woman. She was strong and smart and didn't take crap from anyone. That's who I wanted to be. I was obsessed with Greek mythology at that time and the Amazons were among my favorite characters. All of this was so different than everything else I was presented with: Disney princesses, Barbie, and even She-Ra, Princess of Power. Don't get me wrong; I loved Disney and Barbies too. But they weren't everything and they weren't adventure. Wonder Woman was adventure.

So to say that I was excited when I heard we were finally going to get a Wonder Woman movie would the the understatement of the year. I was excited and cautious; there hasn't been a good DC superhero movie in ages. Would this version of Wonder Woman become one more failure in the DC Universe? If it was, would it mean that we'd never see any of the other wonder female superheroes in their own movies rather than being sidekicks to the boys? This new movie is every discussion/debate/conversation/argument women have ever had about existing.

Which is exactly as the creator of Wonder Woman would want it to be. He'd want us to debate Wonder Woman and her role as a feminist icon because he created her to be one. William Moulton Marston created Wonder Woman to make people think about the roles women play in society. I recently finished Jill Lepore's book The Secret Life of Wonder Woman, part biography of Martson and part discussion of how Wonder Woman came to be. He was a psychologist, writer, lawyer, and inventor of the early forms of the lie detector. He was in his teens and early 20s during the suffrage movement in the US, hearing speakers like Alice Paul and Lucy Barnes discuss suffrage and the place of women in society. He knew Margaret Sanger, the mother of the birth control movement, and would marry a member of her family. He had a complex family situation. He believed women were equal to men and should work outside of the home, govern, and lead the lives they wanted to lead. He used his wives (read the book to get this full story) and Sanger as inspiration for his version of an Amazon. I think he would have loved how Wonder Woman was used in the late 1960s as a bridge between second wave feminists and older suffragist sisters in earlier generations. And he would love the new film version of his creation.

Martson would have jumped head first into the discussion around the women-only screenings of the film hosted by Alamo Drafthouse. He would have enjoyed Austin mayor, Steve Adler's, response to criticism that the events are exclusionary to men. I went to one of these screenings, at the Alamon in Ashburn, and it was wonderful. The ticket sales from all of these events went to organizations which support women and women's issues (In Christy's Shoes was the organization for Ashburn). These particular organizations need support more now than ever given the current administration's plan to dismantle anything remotely helpful for women. What I experienced was a fun evening, watching a great movie in a theatre full of wonder women. We did not, as I'm sure some people who complained about these screenings think, sit around and plot the destruction of man. We laughed a bit louder at some of the more adult humor in the film (There are penis jokes!). We sat in hushed awe at the women of this film, living their Amazonian lives. We cheered loudly when Wonder Woman entered No Man's Land. There were women in costume and so many great t-shirts (I wore a classic WW logo shirt). It was a group of women enjoying a great film about a superhero that means so much to all of them. Like when the lady Ghostbusters graced the world with their humor and awesomeness, nothing bad happened to the men of the world because we had some women-only screenings of Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman was everything I wanted it to be: origin story, love story, and an opportunity for some really amazing women to kick ass. If you're not impressed by the Amazons, particularly Robin Wright as Antiope, you weren't paying close enough attention to the what you were watching. Gal Gadot is striking as Diana (Wonder Woman). She's also funny, smart, and strong; all the things I wanted to be when I pretended to be Wonder Woman as a child. The rest of the cast is great; Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, Lucy Davis as Etta (a favorite of mine from the early comics), Connie Nielson as Hippolyta, and the bad guys, Danny Huston and Elena Anaya. I can't spoil the big bad for you but it's a good one. There's so much to watch and take in along the way. Patty Jenkins, the director, has made a DC superhero movie that is the right combination of dark and light. She and her production have captured what is wonderful about Wonder Woman and her love of mankind. Wonder Woman didn't leave Themyscira to follow a man; she left to help protect mankind from the evils of war. As she says at one point, "It's about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world." 

We need more messages like this from our superheroes, fictional or otherwise.