Kathleen Hanna is part of the reason I was able to make it through my formative teenage years. I remember being 14 years old and angry at the world for an unspecified amount of reasons. My childhood prior to 14 had been an equally unspecified mess, and I wasn’t mature enough to fully digest or express what was going on all around me. In the absence of self-expression, I desperately needed something that validated what I was feeling, proving that others felt it as well and that I would be okay one day.
At 14, the deepest people in the world in my mind were musicians. Since I wasn’t very cool, my music choices were limited to Top 40 hits that said a lot, but they didn’t say exactly what I needed to hear at the time (While Britney Spears is a great songstress…Baby One More Time wasn’t exactly the song that healed my teenage pain). It wasn’t until a much cooler friend handed me over a Mix CD of some of her favorite stuff that I finally found music to connect with.
The mix CD had a few songs by the name of a band named Le Tigre, which was fronted by a woman named Kathleen Hanna. I had never heard of them, and, apparently, they were nowhere near important enough to be put on the radio (ridiculousness). So, I had my first experience of listening to an indie band that no one had ever heard of. It was quite exciting. After I got over the initial joy of liking a band that wasn’t popular, I started to really get into what made that band tick.
What made Le Tigre special, and why was this band one of my friend’s favorite? Then I heard the track “Keep on Living,” and it spoke to me in a way music hadn’t before. Hanna sung “Or stupid shit keeps making you cry… Your friends are worried you won’t tell them why, this is your time, this is your life… keep on living,” and no matter how many other inspirational songs I have heard in my life, that was the one that pushed me. That was the song that said to me, “Yeah, I know bad stuff happens, and sometimes it’s hard to open yourself up and talk to people about it. You’re going to have bad days where you can’t deal with everything, but this is your time, and this is your life, so keep going, keep living, don’t be ashamed.” Le Tigre didn’t make me feel like my 14-year-old emotions were invalid, vapid, or unworthy. I felt that I could have them and work through them, and that I’m worthy enough to go through the feelings of self-doubt, anger, sadness, and whatever else without having to feel bad about myself.
Le Tigre was truly the first female fronted band that I listened to that wasn’t commercially sexualized and that expressed themselves without distilling their image to make it “acceptable.” I remember feeling so free and oddly liberated that I could finally ingest music from a woman that I truly got and that seemed to get me in return. At 14, I couldn’t pinpoint why Le Tigre was so important to me, but, looking back, it was because I didn’t feel like there was a place for me in the world to be angry or sad without having to justify why it was okay for me to feel that way.
I’m closely approaching 23, and I am nearly 10 years (yikes!) past my 14-year-old angst. Even though Le Tigre doesn’t dominate my iTunes any longer, I was hit with a healthy dose of welcomed nostalgia when I got the chance to watch The Punk Singer on Netflix this past week. The Punk Singer is a documentary that has documented Kathleen Hanna, her career, and the reason she abruptly stopped performing in 2005. There are many things to love about The Punk Singer, but what I love the most is the caring, lovely, and honest portrait of Hanna — an idealistic woman who has lived her life fighting to have her voice heard and to make space for other women to speak their truth as well.
The filmmaker wanted The Punk Singer to focus on Hanna’s music and what she meant for the scene she inhabited, which was the Riot Grrrl Punk scene in the Pacific Northwest. The Riot Grrrl scene grew in rebellion to the male-dominated Punk Scene at the time, which was hostile and often violent towards women. Punk music lends itself to angry and poignant expression, which is what attracted feminists such as Kathleen Hanna to it. The problem was that there wasn’t space for women, so Hanna created space with her first band Bikini Kill — the mother of all Riot Grrrl music. Bikini Kill is tough, aggressive, and unapologetic, making their songs about sexual assault and feminism particularly poignant and impactful. They were known to mandate that women stood at the front and men had to stand in the back at their shows; Bikini Kill wanted their music to grow into a movement that was about women and dominated by women. Men were invited, but they were not allowed to take up space. Kathleen Hanna became the unofficial leader of the Riot Grrrls, something that she struggled with and that eventually led to the breakup of Bikini Kill. Hanna then moved on to other projects, including the formation of Le Tigre — which kept many of the same ideas of Bikini Kill but evolved them to a different sound.
The Punk Singer communicates the importance of Kathleen Hanna’s work to a new generation of girls, but it doesn’t portray her an impossible hero. She’s not infallible, and she didn’t have an unrealistically cool life that came to her easily after she became successful and famous. She’s a relatable woman who has a story to tell, and she isn’t afraid to say it as loud as she can. Even more compelling was the reveal that Hanna had been suffering from late stage Lyme Disease; this caused her to quit performing in 2005, and it makes her story even more relatable. I thought that Kathleen, who has been my feminist hero for so long, left the music world because she had said everything that she wanted to say. When I found out that she left the music world because she was sick, she became so much more human and real to me. Even though I know she had her reasons from hiding this from the world, I wish I would have known earlier.
I’ve learned so much from Kathleen Hanna, and more than anything, she’s taught me that my experiences and emotions are valid and that my truth is as important as anyone else’s; it deserves to be shouted from a mountaintop, not hidden in the privacy of my own mind.
Thanks to The Punk Singer, there is renewed interest in Kathleen and her music, and since today’s young women live in an era with more empowered female figures, there is more of a place for Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Now they can join the lives of more young women to help them say the things that they’re still learning how to express.
The Punk Singer is now available on Netflix to stream, so grab your friends and sisters, and get a dose of the wonderful Kathleen Hanna.