I saw The Gits at the Clinton over the weekend, a documentary about the Seattle band whose frontwoman, Mia Zapata, was raped and murdered in 1993 while on her way home from a bar. It’s only playing until Thursday, and, even though I am going to bitch about it in a minute, overall I really recommend it. Here is the trailer:
Unsurprisingly, the movie is really difficult to watch. There were only about ten people in the audience when I saw it, and judging from the sniffles, most of them (us) were in tears by the end. Amy pretty well nails it in her review, but I can’t resist throwing my two cents in, which I will post after the jump.
My biggest problem with the film (aside from the too-frequent use of the same audio over live video from different shows) is that it devotes too much screen time to establishing what a great person Mia was, and too little to exploring the ramifications of her rape and murder. It’s not necessary to establish that the woman was a saint in order to convey that her death was a tragedy–but filmmaker Kerri O’Kane loads the doc with testimonials from irrelevant-seeming college friends, pictures of Mia as a kid, and tear-jerking interviews with Mia’s father. Yes, it was a horrible thing that happened to an apparently pretty great person; yes, Mia’s dad seems like the sweetest guy ever and I love how much he loves his daughter; yes, I cried at the ending. Making me cry is pretty easy, though.
The Gits turns Mia Zapata into a saint; maybe I’m a little too eager for her to be a symbol, but I just don’t think the documentary did an adequate job contextualizing Mia’s murder. The year after Zapata died I bought my first Bikini Kill record, and it was around that time that I learned about her death: Not because she was an amazing person, but because she was a member of a certain scene, embracing (or rejecting, more precisely) certain ideas about how women can and should define themselves, and she got raped and killed anyway. Yet aside from one woman mentioning that the police asked her not to tell people that Mia was raped, and an interesting conversation about how it became difficult for friends to trust one another after her death, the R word rarely comes up in the film.
While it’s cool that Joan Jett did a benefit to help pay a private investigator to find Zapata’s killer, that effort was ultimately unsuccessful, and Jett’s presence in The Gits is touching but ultimately kind of irrelevant. Meanwhile Home Alive, a self-defense/anti-violence nonprofit formed after Mia’s death, is far more important (and still kicking) but gets less screen time. It’s certainly affecting to hear how members of Zapata’s immediate scene remember her, but I was left wishing for more on the impact of Zapata’s death on the broader punk rock and riot grrrl communities.
After reporting on the capture of Zapata’s killer, I considered writing a book about the whole thing. The cover was going to be an image of Zapata as a saint.
She really has been deified post-mortem. I’ve always wondered what she would make of that.
I’ve yet to see the film, but I was there. Rather, I lived a few blocks from where Mia was murdered, drank at the Comet pretty often and went to and loved Gits shows. It was more painful for me when Mia Zapata was murdered than when Kurdt offed himself, for obvious reasons.
As far as what Mia would think of herself being deified…I think she’d spit in your eye, offering a wry, single digit substitute for your spiritual needs.
I think what I miss most about her is her showmanship. She really blew the roof off of a place.
Guess I better haul a mondo box of Kleenex over to the Clinton street and see the film.
Thanks for your thoughts. I really need to see this before it leaves the Clinton.
It’s unfortunate that Zapata has been diefied post-mortem, but to be fair, that’s hardly surprising considering the history of that happening to musicians from jimi hendrix to elliott smith.
I feel you though. Perhaps this documentary will act as an impetus for more in-depth conversation/examination.
I hope so.
I saw “The Gits” a few days ago in Seattle. Not knowing too much about that scene, I found the doc interesting and moving. And I loved the music. But I also agree with your assessment here. There was a point at which I began to think, “Okay, I get it–Mia was much beloved.” (Her dad’s story about the people streaming into Mia’s memorial service with yellow flowers in their hands was rather cloying.)
I do think a certain amount of that stuff is necessary to build a strong human center for the film to revolve around. But O’Kane overplays it and lapses into sentimentality. And she lets her amateurism show by leaning too heavily on Joan Jett to give the movie some star power. (Plus, I found Jett’s facelift distracting.)
Ultimately, though, the movie really made me wish I’d seen The Gits play live back in the day, so on that level it certainly succeeded.
“Plus, I found Jett’s facelift distracting.
Ultimately, though, the movie really made me wish I’d seen The Gits play live back in the day, so on that level it certainly succeeded.”
I agree with all of the above.
The Gits stipulated that the movie be about the music not the murder. Kerri O’Kane was not allowed to explore the crime in depth or to reflect on the wider context of the rape culture.
I don’t believe that Mia was deified in the least. In fact, I think the film did the opposite in revealing how human Mia Zapata was. Also, Joan Jett is not a major star. Facelift b.s. or not, Joan Jett was part of the story in case you are not privy to it. Joan participated in the benefit aspect to help catch the bastard that did this to Mia. Should the director have left this part of the story out so as to shy away from what you refer to as “star power”. That’s absurd.