Pussy Rioting

The nine lives of the Riot Grrrl Revolution

This week, we read a very interesting article that was very different from the recent things that we have been reading lately.  Riot Grrrl was a movement to try and bring awareness to some very important issues such as rape, domestic abuse, women’s health, sexuality, and most importantly, female empowerment. Pussy Riot was a band that we mainly focused on. There we approximately 11 women in total in the group. In 2012, 5 of the members sang a song “Mother of God, put Putin away!”. This song, by itself, was very offensive in my eyes. Religion is something that is very important in my life and I took great offense to those women singing that song in Cathedral in Moscow. I also did not like their style of music either. Kind of screaming out words is not my type of music I like to listen to. Putting on this performance actually put these women in jail for 2 years. I was very surprised to see how much action the police in Moscow took to punish these women for singing. Personally I agree they the most definitely should have gotten some type of punishment but 2 years in prison is quite extreme.

         After reading the lyrics to “Mother of God, put Putin away!” and watching the music video, I had no respect for this “band”. But then when we were introduced to their song “I Can’t Breathe” I was actually very impressed. This song, unlike the other one, had the girl actually singing in it, and their voices were actually pretty good. This song was in dedication of a man in New York City who died from police blocking his airway when trying to arrest him. He had told the policemen several times that he could not breathe but nothing was done and he took his final breaths right there. This song was very powerful and the music video was even more moving. You could clearly see in the music video how hard they were struggling to breathe which gave you a glimpse of what the man in New York was going through when the police were on top of him. I also was shocked that this was Pussy Riot’s first English song too.

Personally, I think Pussy Riot had good intentions for their band but just sent their message the wrong was in Moscow. There was no need to perform that type of song in such a sacred place. I think they should stick to singing the same way they did for “I Can’t Breathe”. “I Can’t Breathe” had such a powerful message that was carried out the right and respectful way. Pussy Riot was definitely a band that I will remember learning about.