Whatever Happened to Not Bad for a Girl?

Whatever Happened to Not Bad for a Girl?

While completing her doctoral dissertation on “subjective rock music engagement” with adolescents in 1990 and immersed in the indie grunge music scene, Dr. Lisa Apramian observed a wave of women creating and performing music. She witnessed theatrical displays of power and stage antics of L7 and the Lunachicks and the daunting personae, kineses and formidable voices of performers Kat Bjelland (Babes in Toyland) and Courtney Love (Hole). Dr. Lisa was exhilarated and inspired to engage in dialogues with the musicians about the power of rock music to subvert “feminine” stereotypes and play with gender identities. Not Bad for a Girl (NB4AG) is their liberating collaboration that still rocks our world.

In 1995, Robert Hawk of the Sundance Film Festival Advisory Selection Committee was instrumental in facilitating the world premiere of Not Bad for a Girl at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, where he was an advisor to Founding Director Robert Faust. That festival kicked off Not Bad for a Girl’s international festival tour. Dr. Lisa was nominated best new director at the Atlanta Film Festival and the film won best documentary at the New York Underground Film Festival and was invited to and screened at the prestigious Créteil International Women’s Film Festival in Paris. Over the next three years, a wave of international interest emerged consisting of fans, scholars, curators, women, reporters, intellectuals, musicians, and distributors. Dr. Lisa thoroughly enjoyed riding this wave before taking a sabbatical in 1997. She shelved the NB4AG film reels and trailers, intentionally removed herself from Hollywood and the rock scene and began a spiritual walkabout to integrate her experiences and cultivate conscious living.

Eleven years later, Dr. Lisa is writing a series of books and revisiting NB4AG and dialogues about her original work. She is preparing to release a special edition digitally remastered DVD to accompany her new book, also titled Not Bad for a Girl, which will examine the challenges and historical significance of the original film shooting and what is emerging in music, theory, culture and the collective psyche today. The book and its companion DVD will be available for women’s studies and popular culture courses as well as a variety of nonacademic venues and markets.

The book will be a compendium of the film and include:
• The making of the film
• Other musicians/genres not featured in the film
• Stills and concert photos
• Transcripts and extended interview material
• Discussion of song lyrics
• Perspectives from rock reporters
• Filmmaker’s self-interview and her iterative process
• Updated dialogues/follow-up with featured musicians
• Commentary on changes in the recording industry and on the Internet
• Updates on waves that followed including Riot Grrrl, Rock n Roll High School, Ladyfest and Rock for Choice
• Relevant music, creativity, womyn, gender, psychology, sociology theories
• Discussion of the value/use of dialogues of gender currently