Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna A Book, Audiobook, and Book Tour Review
As a fan of music artist memoirs and reading about real-life experiences, I devoured Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl in (2) two days. Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk was released on May 14th, 2024, and by May 15th I fell in love with the rebel girl and her experiences all over again.
“That girl, she holds her head up so high”
For those of you who may not know, Katleen Hanna is the frontwoman of the ever-popular feminist punk band, Bikini Kill and author of the Riot Grrrl (zine); though she debates this in her book, many see her as “the original Riot Grrrl” and she never wanted this or claimed this title for her own. She is also known for her electronic, costume-wearing - yet still punky - and punchy Le Tigre (band). She is married to Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys and they have one kid together - and yeah, Julius is in the book.
Hanna calls herself a “rebel girl” instead, posing that this generation isn’t just riot grrls anymore and that we should invent our own, more inclusive term. This call-to-action is suggested as Hanna points out that not all of her fans, the people in her feminist movements, or even close circles are girls - and that she doesn’t want the label to be limiting in any way.
Hanna narrates her audiobook which, while not uncommon, lends particularly to the character of her stories and is reminiscent of the times - the 90s. The “whatever” and “as if” generation of grrrls, people, riots, and rebels will get a kick out of her lingo and the personality that fills her narration. If you read, collect, or listen to musician memoirs, I always suggest the audiobook! (See: Carrie Brownstein’s Hunger Makes me a Modern Girl in which she sings lyrics).
I debated going to the book tour / discussion of Rebel Girl and eventually bought a ticket. I - despite what many of my close friends may think - don’t really love Bikini Kill. I mean, every roller derby team or bout ever played the song: Rebel Girl and yes, it is on my Tank Girl playlist, but they never fully clicked for me. I am, however, a feminist, a punk, an activist, and a nerdy-weirdo who LOVES Le Tigre. Even more shocking is when I tell friends that I LOVE Excuse17 and I love Sleater-Kinney. But then, I also LOVE Portlandia, so…
Rocket Power’s Zinester Reggie Rocket
For a girl who grew up in the 90s, anyone who had a zine was the coolest person I could imagine, double cool if they skated: board or roller. I was the Rocket-Power-fueled-nine-year-old-tom-boy who loved to read, write, and skate. (RE: tomboy, as a highly outdated term is now, often, replaced with the term gender non-conforming for me).
“Tank Girl” and “Jet Girl” for my roller derby birthday bout.
The discussion, on Monday, May 20th, in Los Angeles was narrated/hosted by Amy Poehler, you know, one of the funniest UCB members who acts, writes, and is over all a genuine human being. Oh, and Parks and Rec or whatever - another that I am, personally, not too fond of. Amy boasts credits from Pixar’s Inside Out to SNL, and anything else with Bossypants herself, Tina Fey, writing or staring in it. The two make a damn good team - and this echoed a lot of the conversation on stage last night.
Kathleen Hanna geeked out about how much she admires Amy Poehler, but Poehler dished it up and served it right back. The two of them brought out a women-supporting-women vibe that made the 1000 people roar and laugh on end. What Hanna’s book gives us - is realness. They both talked openly about how they admire and support and love each other and how they want to hang out more - in 90s-rebel-girl fashion - “I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah”.
Rebel Girl gets inside the head of Hanna exposing a very direct and honest person. She describes her experience writing the book as “putting a cheese grater on your face and scraping away.” Kathleen Hanna joked that all the emphasis on hey I like them, I am going to hang out with them, and I’ll just show up at their house and make it happen sounded rather stalker-like, but what I read, heard, and saw on stage was this woman who knew what she wanted and went for it. Kathleen and Amy went back and forth about their shyness and their twin lack of not being able to truly feel like they somehow “made it”. Which gives the audience a unique look at celebrity and a familiar imposter syndrome. In some ways, I sat there saying, “okay. Kathleen did this and that. Her book talked directly to us about how to do it. I’ve faked confidence before. I could do these things - in my way” and then, led me down a path of, “oh, there’s no cap on pushing that finish line further in front of you with every success. 1000 people here for a book, in LA… and you can still feel totally uncool and unsuccessful”.
How do you grant yourself kindness on the days that you don’t meet every expectation you have for yourself? If I am not the new Riot Grrrl or Rebel Girl - then, who am I?
The discussion between Poehler and Hanna reminded and reminded and reminded us all of one thing - “you are going to die,” “we are all going to die,” “I am going to die.” While our rebel girl wasn’t murdered in her office above The Old Spaghetti Factory where she spent her time writing Rebel Girl, she says with grace that her immortality in some ways is her confidence.
I like this person. I can die. They can die. I have nothing to lose.
This is the type of thinking that led her, on a tour while playing in Le Tigre, to ambush Adam Horowitz with sentiments like, “You are the cutest boy I have ever seen,” “I am going to date you,” and “I want you.” Hanna reflected on this telling the 1k people watching her and Poehler on stage that there’s just not enough time to act like you don’t want (him/her/them/it/etc.) or like you don’t care. [spoiler alert:] You do.
Go after what you want in life. You will die.
These sentiments personally make me so happy. They have in some ways built my worldview - having dealt with my near death at age 3 and my best friend’s death as young as 10 and 11. Yeah, there will be a time when - we die.
“90% of life is confidence. The thing about confidence is no one knows if it is real or not” - Maddy, Euphoria
“When it comes to confidence, all you have to do is stick the landing,” I tell my favorite introvert on the ride home, mid-story about a kink munch I once attended. You can sit in that fear and be the one shy person who doesn’t know anyone else at the much - or who lost all confidence when the one person they did know left to talk to others… or, you can pour gasoline on the fire, dial up the heat, and accelerate all that nervousness to one small second - “Hi, I’m Jess!” slowly turns into other women pulling a chair out for me to sit with their group. They all agreed that I seemed so bold and confident - as I am sure we all assume that Hanna is after years on the stage, touring, being interviewed, and in the public eye to be criticized. I was nowhere near cool, calm, collected, or confident at this moment, but it worked. And Maddy was right - no one knew.
Mom,
〰️
if you read this part
〰️
no you didn't.
〰️
Mom, 〰️ if you read this part 〰️ no you didn't. 〰️
Kathleen Hanna’s Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk rips the curtains of celebrity off their rod and forces you to look past the bullshit. Amy Poehler echoed many of these sentiments in her own, albeit clumsy, way. Much like the active social media users who are unfollowing celebrities and instead using the “attention economy” on TikTok to pay each other’s debt and spend our attention on each other, Hanna never wanted to be “the Riot Grrrl;” she wanted to sing and be in a band and she wanted to connect people, care for them, and support them.
