It is little appreciated that the showbiz success story of School of Rock (the movie, the Broadway musical, the TV series) started with a documentary, 2005’s Rock School from filmmaker Don Argott, about the Paul Green School of Rock. Less attention fell on 2007’s Girls Rock! From tandem nonfiction filmmakers Arne Johnson and Shane King, but its portrait of a rowdy rock camp for youngsters is every bit as worthy, with crossover appeal to collections.
Former roadie Misty McElroy founded Portland’s Rock Camp for Girls in reaction to the testosterone-dominated music world; it is stated straightaway her curriculum opposes the sexualization of young females (as with the Jon Cusack political satire War Inc., there seems to be an equation between Britney Spears/”pop tart” toxic pathologies and George W. Bush-era Republicanism), rewinding musical expression to an era of empowered hard-rock feminist idols such as Janis Joplin, Joan Jett, and Patti Smith.
The 2005 Rock Camp for Girls enrollees includes 8-year-old Palace, a prodigy of the primal-scream shriek and natural scene stealer. Laura is a Korean adoptee with a healthy self-image (she jokes – we think – about being dragged to the USA to build railroads) with a death-metal fixation, though her proud father says the music experience has opened her up to an appreciation of other genres, like jazz. Another Misty has come out of a background of addiction, rehab, and brushes with the law, and the camp provides a stabilizing, supportive influence.
The young ladies form bands, squabble, write/record songs, and at the end put on a concert. Technical polish and lyrics go up and down the scale, but they affirm their solidarity and self-esteem against a relentless cultural barrage of peer pressure, unrealistic body images, corporate-consumer pandering, and sexual harassment. These issues have sharpened in the public eye since this film came out – and they were plenty sharp back then.
Buyers should beware of rough language, though not quite up the level of Paul Green's rampant f-bombs in Rock School. A far more political piece than that one, Girls Rock! should chart not only in music collections (the soundtrack contains contributions from female-oriented bands such as Le Tigre and Sleater-Kinney) but also on library shelves devoted to women’s studies and parenting/child development. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries, especially for classrooms teaching music to students.