Molding the Next Joan Jett  | Film Review | Advocate.com

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Molding the Next Joan Jett
The new documentary Girls Rock traces a group of mini-rockers honing their craft at camp and serves as an entertaining reminder that empowerment doesn't always mean shedding clothes
By Kyle Buchanan
An Advocate.com exclusive posted March 17, 2008
Molding the Next Joan Jett

Little girls have a lot in common with rock stars: after all, they're both rebellious and they can scream like nobody's business. Why, then, is the carefully focus-grouped Hannah Montana the closest thing that girls have to a rock icon? Her brand of pop stardom is worlds away from Girls Rock, the new documentary set at the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls -- the kind of place where your counselor is Carrie Brownstein from Sleater Kinney and your vocal coach is Beth Ditto from The Gossip. I know a lot of women who would love to spend a summer at a place like that (especially since a good majority of the camp counselors are lesbians), but this Portland, Ore.–based camp is strictly for 8- to 18-year-old girls, and it's their interplay that makes the film so fascinating.

Girls Rock 01 (Publicity) | Advocate.com

Among the girls profiled here are four primary subjects (including Amelia, an 8-year-old who writes songs about her Chihuahua, and Misty, a teenager from a broken home), but there's no doubt about who the two stars of Girls Rock are -- and they couldn't be more different. Laura is the most sympathetic, an adopted Korean teenager from Oklahoma who's full of bubbly, awkward personality and given to saying things like, "I hate myself already, so high school doesn't degrade me that much." Let loose in the welcoming environment of camp, she's unable to contain herself, hugging other campers relentlessly (in what appears to be only a half-joke, she asks the shyest one to be her "life partner") and making cringe-worthy remarks about being overweight (as when she suggests a plan to chew her food and then spit it out).

Buchanan is The Advocate's film critic.

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