Pussy Takes A Feminist Fall, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #288 | @MDWorld

August 20, 2012 Mike Gold 12 Comments

I have to admit, when I first heard of the feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot I immediately thought of the astonishingly hilarious Ritz Brothers scene in MGM’s Goldwyn Follies. Then I read on. Pussy Riot is an outspoken Russian feminist punk rock band. I immediately thought “oh, that’s not going to go well.” It didn’t.

The story: Last Friday three members of Pussy Riot received two years in the slammer for singing a protest song aimed at Russian President and one-time James Bond villain Vladimir Putin. The chorus of this song goes “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, put Putin away. ?ut Putin away, put Putin away.”

Okay, that’s an act of courage. They did this in Moscow’s main Russian Orthodox cathedral, the Christ the Savior Church, with whom Vlad Putin has “a special relationship.” According Judge Marina Syrova, what the singers did was an act of blasphemy. “The girls’ actions were sacrilegious, blasphemous and broke the church’s rules,” she said before the sentence was handed down. It was “hooliganism” inspired by religious hatred. Moreover, Judge Syrova said Pussy Riot’s feminist beliefs encouraged religious hatred.

Curiously, the Russian Orthodox church has called for mercy. The U.S. embassy said the sentence appeared “disproportionate” to the crime. British foreign office minister Alistair Burt said he was “deeply concerned.”

Street demonstrations in Russia have been picking up steam and, as of this writing, there are reports of over 100 arrests in Moscow alone, including politician and former world chess Grand Master Gary Kasparov. In the Ukraine, the feminist group Femen held a demonstration where an attractive topless spokeschopper  wearing safety goggles used a chainsaw to cut down an Orthodox cross. Several women have been arrested at the pro-Pussy Riot demonstration in New York City. Amnesty International called the sentence a “bitter blow to freedom of expression in Russia.”

Vlad Putin does not like to be criticized, and Vlad runs the show. Hammering those who sing out against their boss is simply his employees’ way of shining the apple.

Civil libertarians and members of the international rock’n’roll community have expressed their outrage and support. Sir Paul McCartney tweeted “I hope you can stay strong and believe that I and many others like me who believe in free speech will do everything in our power to support you and your artistic freedom.” However, it is not known if the convicts – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Marina Alokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich – are allowed to keep smartphones and Twitter accounts while in prison.

Okay, it’s Russia, where they have even more limited freedom of expression and freedom from religious tyranny than we have here in the United State. But if you’re looking to gauge how the nation has progressed since the fall of Communism – and Putin wasn’t enough – well, there you go. Pussy Riot has already served five months in prison, so they have another 19 months to go.

Unless Vlad decides to appear weak. There’s a first for everything, and some day pigs will most certainly fly.

I can’t begin to tell you how desperately I’m trying to connect “Pussy Riot,” “Vlad Putin” and “Ernst Stavro Blofeld” together in one sentence. Blofeld had a pussy too, you know.

Double-pussy owner Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week (check the website above for times) and available On Demand at the same place. He also joins Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.