Recently, I watched this documentary about Kathleen Hanna and her influence on the growing American punk scene in the 1990s (The embedded link above IS the whole thing; it might be taken down soon for copyright purposes, so I would suggest watching it soon if you are interested). While I deeply admire Kathleen Hanna and the power she had put into making the Riot Grrrl movement what it was, I wanted to blog about this film because of how much I appreciate the documentary form of this particular documentary (to keep things short! I could go on and on about Kathleen Hanna). Typically, when we see documentaries about moments of history or past events, they are usually told by historians who were detached from the event itself. If it is about a particular person, interviews of people close to them: family members, past lovers, friends. Unfortunately, documentaries I have seen before this one are usually made post-mortem (some people don’t get recognition for their work until they are dead, like Kafka or Van Gough, for example. Mostly artists). It is very third person, making the documentary feel distanced personally. Another Typical occurrence is documentaries made DURING the time of the historical event, like in a vlog form. The thing that these documentaries miss, while having the direct people in the documentary, is that they fail to acknowledge the wider scope of importance that these events documented have in history. While this is not their fault because we obviously can’t see how events group together and affect the wider world in the future, it misses the cultural importance aspect of the events, making its “argument” less significant as time progresses. It becomes more of a “show” than a “tell”. This Kathleen Hanna Documentary is the exact mix of both kinds of documentaries. We see clips straight from the Olympia punk scene where Hanna played with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, as well as other assorted scenes straight from the time period of the peak of Bikini Kill. This Documentary was made in 2013, much after the scene pushed off and years after Kathleen Hanna stopped performing with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. This time was perfect for seeing the cultural and historical significance of this newfound wave of feminism through punk music in the Pacific Northwest. The Interviews were straight from Kathleen Hanna herself, members of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and other important scene people from that time. They could tell the story for themselves, rather than the director attempting to tell the story for them with puzzle pieces that may or may not be accurate. In a way it was very similar to Paris is Burning.