Pussy Riot: The Role of Punk Music in Political Activism

Pussy Riot: The Role of Punk Music in Political Activism

            Punk rock as a variety of Rock emerged in the mid-70s from the conventional garage rock to reject the perceived excesses of 70s mainstream rock.  Hence, the emergence of Punk created a new subculture to act as social dissent of mainstream corporate mass culture and values.  Thus, Punk began as a capable mechanism for social change by radically shifting social norms through rebellion and disobedience of classical confines of class, religion, and gender as well as consumerism. According to Prinz (585) punks musically manifests through “vocal styles that can sound like angry protests or sneering insults and some songs attack the prevailing political order.” One style of Punk is using anarchism as an imperative political ideology and presents with elements of chaos and anti-authoritarianism. Pussy Riot is a band based in Russia that uses music to advance ideas on political activism, as did other earlier groups such as Sex Pistols and Crass, who use anarchism to fight existing political injustices. Arguably, Pussy Riot uses anarchism as a vital component in punk music as a political ideology to oppose the Russian regime, Trump residency, and the Church.

Pussy Riot and how it uses Punk’s element Anarchy as a political ideology

Pussy riot is band famous for their 21 February 2012 guerilla performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Russia. The Pussy Riot is a feminist punk rock band established in 2011 and included about eleven females between twenty and thirty-three years at the time. The group has integrated into their songs the political incorrectness to mock the apparent pretense of predominant social order, including feminism and LGBT rights, among others. After the band’s alleged provocative public performance in 2012, three female band members were arrested and accused and indicted for perpetrating hooliganism based on religious hatred for two years. Two members of the band, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were sentenced or two years in jail and granted amnesty after almost serving their full sentences. However, the government placed another member Samutsevich, on probation after an appeal hearing in October 2012. t is clear that they use Punk as a genre to promote partisan ideologies, notably when they asserted the nature of Putinism and the role of the Church in sustaining the patriarchal oligarchic government bent on maintaining the status quo.

Perhaps it is essential to explore archaism in their song Make America Great Again. Pussy Riot used this song to depict a likely President Trump’s win in the 2016 United States presidential election as a precedent for a dystopian world in which the incoming president would enforce his values on America and the world. Perhaps it is crucial to note that the band relies on Youtube for activism, especially for songs that target not only Russia and use these mediums to further political conversations on what is right (Weij and Pauwke, 289).  Thus, authenticity is a critical characteristic of Punk that appears in Pussy Riots’ and other artists’ songs, including this is America by Childish Gambino. Therefore, authenticity is vital in political activism as music “affords political participation to its listeners and users and is often perceived to be more effective than conventional political participation as it engages people and allows for political actors to communicate with people” (Weij and Pauwke, 289).

Another vital element is that Punk allows Pussy Riots to explore and communicate their political activism in their guerilla performances. For example, one of the band’s most recent activities was at the 2018 World Cup Final, where the group dressed up as police and satirized the society. Punk in the enabling of the group is due to Punk’s rebellious nature, which encompasses various elements such as despair and other characteristics that emphasize on aspects such as destruction and using sounds that may be deemed as unwanted to prove a point. Indeed Prinz (3)suggested that Punk as a subculture allows the embrace of discord which explains why Pussy Riot can protest human rights abuses in Russia by refuting the current social order. In England for instance, Punk acted as a political method to protest rising employment and declining economy (Prinz, 3)

Conclusion

Punk ideologies integrate various social-political beliefs linked with the punk subculture. As such, Pussy Riot uses Punk for political activism as Punk is a music genre that seeks to reject excesses and social orders that subjugate people or a group of people. Protests are an essential right. However, Russia is a highly conservative culture that may struggle to make sense of the band’s performance. Regardless, the group asserted that the prosecution emphasized religion and not art or politics and that their protest was