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Start Date

24-6-2022 12:00 AM

End Date

24-6-2022 12:00 AM

Abstract

During the 2010s, Terrorbird Media signed exclusive licensing and publishing deals with riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna for the rights to use her bands’ recordings for commercial use. Hanna’s arrangement with the indie-oriented music firm was part of the company’s acquisition of the licensing rights to several feminist post-punk and riot grrrl bands throughout the decade. While Hanna’s music with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre was licensed before her Terrorbird signing, she bemoaned how many of these placements were non-consensual and exploitative. Furthermore, her music was unavailable to stream after Le Tigre’s dissolution in 2007. Thus, Hanna’s Terrorbird deals allowed old and new listeners to access her music on streaming services and through nearly 50 music placements in television, film, trailers, video games, and advertising campaigns. The timing of Hanna’s commercial revival is significant, as the 2010s also witnessed the critical reappraisal of the riot grrrl movement’s impact on popular feminism, Sarah Banet-Weiser’s term to describe the commodification of women’s equality under late capitalism (2018). Hanna’s work, particularly Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” and Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon,” are often used as shorthand for characters’ feminist identification in visual storytelling either by connoting youthful resistance from hegemonic femininity and patriarchal norms or ambivalent nostalgia for bygone political idealism and sexual liberation. Thus, this paper focuses on how the recirculation of Hanna’s music functions as a sonic emblem of popular feminism by facilitating an intergenerational exchange between Generation X’s alignment with third-wave feminism and Generation Z’s absorption of popular feminism.

Bio

Alyxandra Vesey is an assistant professor in Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama. Her research focuses on gender, music culture, and media labor. She is currently working on a manuscript about female musicians’ self-branding work in the early 21st century. Her work has appeared in several publications, including Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Television and New Media, Journal of Popular Music Studies, Camera Obscura, Popular Music and Society, Emergent Feminisms: Complicating a Postfeminist Media Culture, and Saturday Night Live and American TV.

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Jun 24th, 12:00 AM Jun 24th, 12:00 AM

Who Took the Bomp? Licensing Kathleen Hanna

During the 2010s, Terrorbird Media signed exclusive licensing and publishing deals with riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna for the rights to use her bands’ recordings for commercial use. Hanna’s arrangement with the indie-oriented music firm was part of the company’s acquisition of the licensing rights to several feminist post-punk and riot grrrl bands throughout the decade. While Hanna’s music with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre was licensed before her Terrorbird signing, she bemoaned how many of these placements were non-consensual and exploitative. Furthermore, her music was unavailable to stream after Le Tigre’s dissolution in 2007. Thus, Hanna’s Terrorbird deals allowed old and new listeners to access her music on streaming services and through nearly 50 music placements in television, film, trailers, video games, and advertising campaigns. The timing of Hanna’s commercial revival is significant, as the 2010s also witnessed the critical reappraisal of the riot grrrl movement’s impact on popular feminism, Sarah Banet-Weiser’s term to describe the commodification of women’s equality under late capitalism (2018). Hanna’s work, particularly Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” and Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon,” are often used as shorthand for characters’ feminist identification in visual storytelling either by connoting youthful resistance from hegemonic femininity and patriarchal norms or ambivalent nostalgia for bygone political idealism and sexual liberation. Thus, this paper focuses on how the recirculation of Hanna’s music functions as a sonic emblem of popular feminism by facilitating an intergenerational exchange between Generation X’s alignment with third-wave feminism and Generation Z’s absorption of popular feminism.