Pussy Riot rad for a reason

This is what music can do.

The Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot is known for its surprise public performances and radical lyrics. The group lineup isn’t fixed. Members tend to wear colorful ski masks when performing.

Pussy Riot knows how to call attention to itself. That’s the point.

I won’t pretend to know about American hard core, Russian feminist punk history or what the ongoing story of the riot grrrl movement looks like.

All I know is Pussy Riot has captivated the indie and mainstream media in the United States ever since three of its members were arrested earlier this year after playing a “punk prayer” in a Moscow church.

The three Pussy Rioters were sentenced to two years in prison for hooliganism Friday to the outrage of American supporters.

Vadim Nikitin’s recent New York Times op-ed points out that these same Pussy Riot sympathizers might balk at some of the group’s more radical acts, such as setting fire to a police car and participating in a public orgy.

He argues it’s hypocritical for Americans to criticize Russia’s intolerance of acts Americans normally wouldn’t condone. Nikitin is partially right.

This story shouldn’t be about freedom-hating Russia. It shouldn’t be all about civil liberties.

It’s easy to denounce Russia for convicting Pussy Riot, but it’d be nonsense to think an American hard-core band wouldn’t be arrested for doing the same thing.

The U.S. isn’t exactly friendly to feminist activists either. Just because we have the right to political music doesn’t mean it goes well.

The Pussy Riot story should be about the power of music, especially feminist music, to inspire contemporaries and ignite political discourse in the mainstream. We shouldn’t just hate Russia for its misogyny. We should use this moment to examine what place activist music has in American media.

To hope for the second wave of riot grrrl would be too dismissive of all the bands who have carried on the legacy since the movement’s conception. But a resurgence of prominent acts would be radical.

If nothing else, this outrage will hopefully result in newsworthy political action from U.S. punks.

This is an election year. Punk activism can go a long way to draw attention to the issues our two-party system overlooks.

Protest music used to mean something in America. The Occupy concerts transfixed the media for a time but lost traction with the churning news cycle. Is this a problem of form or content?

Maybe some radicalism is necessary.