Girls Rock!

Five days, over one hundred teenage girls, one goal: be yourself. Not the self your parents hope you’ll be. Not the self your siblings and friends bully you into being. Not the self who mimics those girls you publicly hate but secretly admire because everyone looks at them. Be the real you - the you that ROCKS. This goal is the driving force behind the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls and the basis of the new documentary, Girls Rock!

The Riot Grrl movement in the early 1990s tapped into the raw musical talent and intense energy so many women had been taught to hide and deny. But with every cultural movement comes backlash. For the Riot Grrl movement, it came in the form of vacuous pop music icons with glossy lips, bare midriffs and pigtails, dancing suggestively while singing along to pre-recorded voice tracks. Clearly, it’s time to re-empower young women.

Enter the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. Founded by Misty McElroy, the camp’s main goal is to “build girls’ self-esteem through music creation and performance.” What started as a fledgling program at Portland State University in the summer of 2001 has become a veritable revolution with new camps popping up from the Bay Area to Britain.

The new documentary, Girls Rock!, details the experiences of four of the camp’s participants as they form bands, write songs, and perform for 750 fans - all in the span of 5 days. These girls were chosen for the camp and the documentary not because they worship Le Tigre or can play the guitar; they were chosen because they are the examples of what life is like for many young women in America today.

Palace, 7, has more worries than can fit into her tiny frame. Her parents are divorced and her baby brother has Down’s syndrome. She frequently misses school due to “tummy aches” brought on by severe anxiety. At rock camp, Palace sings. Well, she screeches.

Laura, 15, is a Korean adoptee. She is one of the only girls in her small Oklahoma town who listens to death metal. She is outgoing, well spoken and funny, but doesn’t push the line for fear of offending someone or standing out. At rock camp, Laura writes and sings her own lyrics.

The film flows between interviews with the featured girls’ parents, camp staff, and the girls themselves to clips of all participants immersed in the day-to-day activities of rock camp. It is peppered with sections of inventive animation that serve as the backdrop for revealing statistics about teen girls and the media, such as “Twice as many boys as girls say their talents are what they like most about themselves. Girls are twice as likely to say a body part is their best feature” and “The number one wish of teen girls is to lose weight.”

A few weeks ago, I was able to speak with Arne Johnson and Shane King, the co-directors of Girls Rock!. Arne and Shane have been collaborating on film projects since the 7th grade when they got their hands on a Super 8mm. At a concert, they learned of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp’s existence through Carrie Brownstein of Sleater Kinney. “She was raving about the camp and we knew there was something there,” commented Shane. He remembered initially thinking that, because of the camp’s affiliation with big name grrl rock groups like Sleater Kinney and The Gossip, the camp would be some sort of “rocket ship to stardom” for aspiring girls. But what they found was that this program is “much more of a life raft” for girls who need to find and trust their own voice.

Initially, Shane and Arne were unsure that they, as men, were the right people to make this documentary. “We definitely questioned it,” acknowledged Shane, “but what it came down to was that we really weren’t taking anything for granted. We let the girls tell their whole story.” Arne echoed this sentiment and added that, “the girls became our tour guides. We were just two guys having our eyes opened by these girls.”

What the girls reveal is inspiring, humorous and sometimes crushing. But even more important than what is exposed is what people do with the information given. When I asked Arne and Shane what positive reactions they hoped this documentary would incite, they were very candid about their expectations. “The people who create the media are adults and we are the ones who need to fix it,” said Arne. “We need to stop consuming and making these things that are sending incorrect messages to kids.” As far as the younger audience is concerned, Arne stated, “The girls talk about the importance of positive role models. What we really need is for these girls who have found their voice to become these role models for other girls.” And as for Shane, well he just wants to see a rock ‘n’ roll camp for girls in every city in America.

These are high hopes for a documentary, but the girls featured are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Laura calmly states at the beginning of the film, “I just accept that I hate myself and I don’t really think about it.” But with a new group of friends, the freedom to sing the words that she wrote, and people who actually encourage her to dance during the performance, Laura completely transforms into an amazingly confident person. She smiles and says to the camera, “I’ve been waiting so long to finally admit to myself that I’m amazing. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and they get even better when they decide to be powerful and they decide to rock.”

So take your friends and all the kids you can legally wrangle into your car and check out the premiere of this fantastic new documentary that will have you cheering for these mini-rockers and asking where this camp was when you were a kid.

Girls Rock! opens in select cities (including Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles) on March 7! For information on tickets and opening weekend events, please visit the Girl’s Rock! website.

View the movie trailer, plus additional videos, and listen to music created by the camp participants on the Girls Rock! Myspace page!

For more information on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, including how you can get involved, visit their official website.

Written by Maggie Weller