Pussy Riot: Dissent on Trial in Russia
 | In February, four members of a feminist Russian punk-rock band named "Pussy Riot," protesting against President Vladimir Putin's government, walked into the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. They wore bright-colored balaclavas and performed a provocative song called "Punk Prayer," with lyrics that called on the Virgin Mary to drive Putin away, and condemned the close relationship of the church and the Russian government. Shortly after, three of the women were arrested and detained for months as a 2,800-page indictment was compiled, accusing them of criminal hooliganism and religious hatred. On Friday, the three were convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment, after a trial widely condemned by outside observers as an attack on free speech. Gathered here are several images from the trial and the reactions of Pussy Riot supporters around the world. |
| Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the female punk band Pussy Riot, raises a fist before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, on August 8, 2012. On Friday, August 17, Tolokonnikova and two other members of the band were convicted of criminal hooliganism and acts of religious hatred for staging a "punk prayer" against Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral last February. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images) Western coverage has reduced these Russian dissidents to more familiar narratives of youthful rebellion or damsels in distress, missing their entire point and adopting Moscow's own language.
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A protester in support of Pussy Riot rallies in front of the Russian embassy in Toronto. (AP)
Imagine this: The three men sit in a Moscow court, awaiting their verdict. The youngest, an experienced dissident described by Western media as a "sultry sex symbol" with "Angelina Jolie lips," glances at his colleague, an activist praised by the Associated Press for his "pre-Raphaelite looks." Between them sits a third man, whose lack of glamour has led the New Republic to label him "the brain" and deem his hair a "poof of dirty blonde frizz." The dissidents -- or "boys" as they are called in headlines around the world -- have been the subject of numerous fashion and style profiles ever since they first spoke out against the Russian government. "He's a flash of moving color," the New York Times writes approvingly about their protests, "never an individual boy."
If this sounds ridiculous, it should -- and not just because I've changed their gender. These are actual excerpts from the Western media coverage of Pussy Riot, the Russian dissident performance art collective sentenced to two years in prison for protesting against the government. Pussy Riot identifies as feminist, but you would never know it from the Western media, who celebrate the group with the same language that the Russian regime uses to marginalize them.
The three members of Pussy Riot are "girls," despite the fact that all of them are in their 20s and two are mothers. They are "punkettes," diminutive variations on a 1990s indie-rock prototype that has little resemblance to Pussy Riot's own trajectory as independent artists and activists. "Why is Vladimir Putin afraid of three little girls?" asked a Huffington Post blogger who is not prominent but whose narrative frame, a question intended as a compliment, is an extreme but not atypical example of the West's reaction to and misunderstanding of Pussy Riot.
As far as Pussy Riot's problems go, being characterized as "girls" by the press ranks pretty low. So does the lack of vegan food in Russian prisons (the object of a clueless campaign by fellow 1990s throwback Alicia Silverstone). Both are trivial compared to the two years of hard time they face. But Pussy Riot tells us a lot about how we see non-Western political dissent in the new media age, and could suggest a habit of mischaracterizing their grave mission in terms that feel more familiar but ultimately sell the dissidents short: youthful rebellion, rock and roll, damsels in distress. The fanfare surrounding the trial has been compared to Kony2012, and while that may be true in terms of public attention, it is not in substance -- unlike the Africans depicted in Kony2012 by American activists, Pussy Riot are the directors of their own campaign. But looking at their Western supporters, one wonders how well their message is getting across.
You don't call your group Pussy Riot without trying to construct a gender identity. The description of the women as a punk band is inaccurate, the claim that they take cues from Riot Grrl culture is correct, and Pussy Riot seems to be designed with Western reception in mind. In Russian, Pussy Riot's name is the English words "Pussy Riot" written in Cyrllic, where they carry the same connotation. Sex was always part of their shock repertoire, from the band name to the penises drawn on bridges to the public orgies to the creative use of frozen chicken by one of the group's members. They courted controversy and were aware of the repercussions. "These women, and they alone in this mess, know exactly what they are doing," wrote Michael Idov, the editor-in-chief of GQ Russia, in the Guardian. Yet it is precisely this sense of agency missing from much of Pussy Riot coverage.
In 2005, film critic Nathan Rabin coined the phrase Manic Pixie Dream Girl to describe a woman who "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." You might say that Pussy Riot are being treated as something like Manic Pixie Dream Dissidents, blank revolutionary slates onto which Westerners are projecting their hipster fantasies.
At a recent sympathy rally in New York, celebrities such as Chloe Sevigny pretended to be Pussy Riot members (a tribute yet to be paid to imprisoned Russian men like Garry Kasparov or Mikhail Khodorovsky) and fans proclaimed to feel their pain. "Pussy Riot makes me feel like, I can imagine being thrown in jail for doing absolutely nothing," said one attendee. The three women were actually imprisoned for a deliberately provocative act, not "for doing absolutely nothing" -- which was the point, and speaks much more highly of Pussy Riot and their mission -- but this sort of reaction isn't about reality, it's about a Western fantasy of relevance and dissent. "Punk matters," claim legions of articles on Pussy Riot, with the subtext: "I matter, too." And so, around the world, we have Pussy Riot reenactments, Pussy Riot sublimations -- protests free from arrest or anxiety, isolated from historical or political context.
It's not fair to generalize across the entire media, of course, and sympathetic celebrity would-be-activists like Sevigny contribute to the confusion. Western outlets that more regularly cover Russian politics have noted that male Russian dissidents have been ignored as Pussy Riot draws world sympathy. ("I wonder if #PussyRiot would get so much attention if they were a male band called #DickMob", mused one commenter on Twitter.) Removing Pussy Riot from the broader problem of political persecution in Russia is one thing, but the case also raises specific questions about gender, media, and politics.
In the same week that Pussy Riot was profiled in the New York Times style section, the Boston Review''s Tumblr republished a 2010 Q&A with Hillary Clinton, in which an interviewer asked her who her favorite designer was. "Would you ever ask a man that question?" she snapped. "Probably not, probably not," the reporter replied. The American media embraced Clinton's riposte, reprinting it widely. But when it comes to foreign female dissidents, they seem to adopt the same values Clinton was rejecting.
Russian state media have sexualized and infantilized the women of Pussy Riot, likely in order to marginalize their critiques and to drain them of their political value. "We are here only as decorations, inanimate elements, mere bodies that have been delivered into the courtroom," defendant Nadezhda Tolokonnikova complained. But by focusing excessively on physical appearance and nostalgic notions of youthful "punk" individualism, the Western press is often doing the same. The women of Pussy Riot must be made into "girls," to conform to more familiar Western narratives and to fuel fantasies, never on their own terms.
Members of Pussy Riot staged several protests prior to the Cathedral incident in February. Here, the group protests at the so-called Lobnoye Mesto in Red Square in Moscow, on January 20, 2012. The eight activists, who were later detained by police, staged the performance to protest against the policies of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. (Reuters/Denis Sinyakov) # 
Four members of Pussy Riot perform "Punk Prayer" inside the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on Tuesday, February 21, 2012. Guards quickly intervened and ushered the women out of the cathedral. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) # 
A supporter of the punk band Pussy Riot holds a poster outside a Moscow courthouse, on March 14, 2012, during hearings on the women's arrests. A Moscow court earlier had confirmed the detention of members of Pussy Riot for trying to perform in the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin praised the women's arrests. (Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images) # 
Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot, one of the three women to be tried, is escorted to a courtroom in Moscow, on April 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev) # 
Yekaterina Samutsevich of Pussy Riot, one of the three women to be tried, sits in a defendant's cage in a district court in Moscow, on June 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze) # 
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, of Pussy Riot, one of the three women to be tried, sits in the defendant's cell before a court hearing in Moscow, on August 8, 2012. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin) # 
A supporter of Pussy Riot is detained by police outside a court in Moscow, on August 8, 2012. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin) # 
Supporters of Pussy Riot sit locked inside a mock defendant's cage outside a Moscow court, on July 4, 2012. (Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images) # 
Members of Pussy Riot Yekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina are escorted to a court hearing in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin) # 
A German supporter of Pussy Riot holds a poster in Hamburg, Germany, on August 17, 2012. (Marcus Brandt/AFP/Getty Images) # 
Pussy Riot supporters place masks on a monument to WWII heroes to resemble Pussy Riot members, at an underground station in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Yevgeny Feldman, Novaya Gazeta) # 
A supporter of the detained members Pussy Riot throws leaflets from a balcony during a protest rally in Prague, Czech Republic, on June 19, 2012. (Reuters/David W. Cerny) # 
Protesters wearing masks take part in an Amnesty International flash mob demonstration in support of Pussy Riot in the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland, on August 14, 2012. (Reuters/David Moir) # 
Masked protesters hold up placards next to each other outside the Russian Embassy in Mexico City, during a demonstration to support Pussy Riot, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Henry Romero) # 
Police detain former world chess champion and opposition leader Garry Kasparov during the trial of the female punk band Pussy Riot, outside a court building in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Tatyana Makeyeva) # 
Activists wear masks and hold posters in support of Pussy Riot during a protest rally in front of the Russian Embassy, in Warsaw, Poland, on August 17, 2012. The poster at right reads, "Freedom for Pussy Riot". (Reuters/Kacper Pempel) # 
Jonathan Gomes, during a demonstration in front of the Russian consulate in New York, in support of Pussy Riot, on August 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) # 
Police detain a supporter of Pussy Riot for violation of law and order outside a court building in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin) # 
A woman wears a veil during a demonstration by supporters of Pussy Riot outside the Russian Embassy in London, England, on August 17, 2012. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) # 
Russian film Director Olga Darfy arrives wearing a mask in support of detained members of female punk band Pussy Riot, for the opening ceremony of the 34th International Film Festival in Moscow, on June 21, 2012. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov) # 
Activists of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen use a chainsaw to cut down an Orthodox cross, erected to the memory of victims of the political repression in Kiev on August 17, 2012 in support of Russian punk group Pussy Riot. (Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images) # 
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky, a supporter of the jailed members of Pussy Riot, with his mouth sewn shut, as he protests outside the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, on July 23, 2012. (Reuters/Trend Photo Agency) # 
Members of the punk group Pussy Riot, from left, Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, in a glass cage in a courtroom in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) # 
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left) and Maria Alyokhina, look out from the defendant's cell in a courtroom in Moscow, on July 30, 2012. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov) # 
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (left), Maria Alyokhina (right) and Yekaterina Samutsevich (center), sit behind glass during a court hearing in Moscow, on on July 30, 2012. Russian prosecutors asked for a three year jail sentence for the three members of Pussy Riot, saying their crime of singing an anti-Vladimir Putin song in a church was so "severe" they deserved isolation. (Andrey Smirnov/AFP/Getty Images) # 
An opposition activist with her child stands in front of Orthodox militant group members who stood in front of Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral to prevent the opposition access to the Cathedral, on April 29, 2012. Opposition activists planned to pray to Holy Mother to deliver Russia from Vladimir Putin, repeating the "punk prayer" sung by five members of Pussy Riot in February. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) # 
Members of Pussy Riot who are still at large, wait before an interview with Reuters journalists in Moscow, on August 13, 2012. (Reuters/William Webster) # 
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a topless FEMEN activist squirts ink on the wall of the Russian consulate as another holds a sign that reads "Free Pussy Riot" in Portuguese, on August 15, 2012. (AP Photo/Nelson Antoine) # 
Supporters Pussy Riot listen to the band's songs as they sit in a car near a court building in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov) # 
A policeman chases a supporter of Pussy Riot across a fence enclosing the Turkish embassy near a court building in Moscow, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Mikhail Voskresensky) # 
New York Police Department officers arrest a woman demonstrating in solidarity with the Russian punk band Pussy Riot in front of the Russian Consulate in New York, on August 17, 2012. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson) # 
Members of Pussy Riot perform during a concert by U.S. rock group Faith No More in Moscow, on July 2, 2012. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin) # 
A masked demonstrator attends a demonstration in support of Pussy Riot, whose members face two years in prison for a stunt against President Vladimir Putin, outside Russia's embassy in Berlin, on August 17, 2012. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
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