Women Who Rock

Typical garbage produced in America in 2022. Take episode one - rather than delving into countless deserving women, we are treated to other tangenital subjects. It's the sort of show you expect in 2022 - if you don't fit the bill, if you don't talk politics, if you don't look right, you will be omitted despite your talent and impact. The Shangri-La's, The Ronettes and The Shirelles deserve better, and that's just a small sample of those overlooked in just the first episode.

Going through the episodes and decades, we are shown some deserving women, but the problem is those who are omitted stick out. 95% of worthy women are ignored, or only briefly namechecked. The talking heads aren't up to par, either. It's all substandard - rather than being of a high standard, it's like an idiot's guide. With an emphasis on idiot.

I started watching this series because of the intriguing title but got more and more discouraged when women who had nothing to do with rock became more and more prevalent. It's like presenting a documentary on Heavy Metal and including such influencers as the Osmonds and the Jackson 5. Doesn't make much sense, does it? That's this series in a nutshell.

Since I'm a big music fan, I can enjoy much of what was shown in this four-part series. The problem is that it was presented as paying, "homage to the legion of women pioneers in music...", and they didn't do a very good job paying homage to many, many of the great female rock/pop stars. Aretha Franklin, Linda Ronstadt and Donna Summer are name-checked only. Diana Ross and the Supremes - one of the most successful groups of the 60's, male or female - are barely shown. Carly Simon, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga (among others) are not mentioned at all. I understand that you want to reward the artists who agreed to participate in your series. I get that. I love Heart, so if you want to spend more than 10 minutes on Heart because you got Nancy Wilson to participate, I think that's great. But when you're not spending any time on female superstars because they won't give you the time of day, and instead are spending all this time on Chaka Khan (who ridiculously asserts that she deserved to be paid as much as The Rolling Stones, but wasn't because of her gender), Sheila E., Jody Watley, etc. Because they agreed to participate in your series, well, you're just not being objective. It is clear to me that if artists like Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga agreed to participate in this series, there would have been much more of a focus on them, which would have totally made sense, as they were huge during their time. Instead, the producers ignore them, which is a disservice to a series that is ostensibly supposed to be about the most important women of the rock era, not just the ones who agreed to appear in your documentary.

The critics of this show are too harsh. Do they realise how hard it would be to get top rock stars, who live far and wide, to be interviewed? It would have been a logistical nightmare.

But they manage to snare a succession of great artists like Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan, Tina Weymouth, Kate Pearson, Shania Twain, Sheryl Crowe, Ann and Nancy Wilson and Pat Benatar.

That's a pretty good line-up!

You also realise just how hard these woman would have had to work to overcome the sexist culture of rock amid male musicians, producers, fans, etc.

And to be taken seriously.

Often they would have been the only woman performer in their bands. Chaka Khan tells how she would remind her band that she was boss.

I'm glad this doco recognises a very confident, brave array of women.

I still give this a 6 because it does have so much. But who made these choices? How could they leave out some of the most influential women in music ever?

No mention of Buffy St Marie or Joan Baez. None of Queen Latifah or a huge figure like Lauryn Hill. No Wendy O Williams or Lita Ford or even Amy Lee of Evanescence.

Sometimes the series softens what actually happened. There's no mention of Ann Wilson and Debbie Iyall and the garbage they went through from record companies for their weight.

There's huge issues with gender in metal and rap and country, but you don't hear a thing about them in this series. Instead you get the ridiculous claim of Sinnead Oconnor as an "activist" when no one even knew what she was supposedly protesting for years and she came across as paranoid with mental health issues.

The legendary Aretha Franklin is barely mentioned. But Shania Twain gets a ridiculous 8 minutes to bloviate and put her ego on display. And there's no mention of her being long derided as pure fluff, as Steven Earle put it, just a "high paid lap dancer."

She has never done anything remotely close to rock. If you include country, why are the far more influential and talented Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton left out? And they were actual feminists who sang about and were activists for women's rights, not the faux feminism of Twain or Beyonce or Madonna or Whitney of monster egos but not doing a damn thing for anyone else.