Pussy Riot’s new female empowerment anthem hits back at Trump

Russian protest group and punk rock band Pussy Riot has released a new single, and it’s a feminist anthem celebrating the vagina. The song, “Straight Outta Vagina,” is also meant to be a riposte to US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comment.

The music video debuted on Tuesday. It features the band’s Nadya Tolokonnikova dressed in a clerical vestment, as well as Desi Mo Bradley and Leikeli47.

The song doesn’t hold back, with provocative lyrics like “Don’t play stupid, don’t play dumb, vagina’s where you’re really from,” and empowering lines such as “Vagina gonna win the race, vagina gonna play in space, vagina gonna top the charts.”

The lyrics “If your vagina lands in prison, then the whole world’s going to listen” are in reference to the arrest and imprisonment of Pussy Riot members Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina after their participation in a 2012 anti-Putin cathedral performance in Moscow.

The band posted a strong feminist message in the video’s description:

“Female power and female sexuality are yet need to be discovered. Discussed. Performed. Lived up.

“Women were slaves of the world for centuries. Women’s got their right to vote less than 100 years ago. Russia (1917), US (1919), Switzerland (1971). We’re still just about to build another roles, norms, ethics for vaginas owners.

“And the owner of vaginas is not some narcissistic stupid orange ape who’d claim that he could easily grab women by their pussies. The owner of vagina is a woman. Who wears her vag as a badge of honour.”

The video was directed by Phillip Lopez and shot in Los Angeles at The Theatre at Ace Hotel. As for the song itself, Pussy Riot recorded it in February with American record producer and musician Dave Sitek.

Tolokonnikova said that her phrase “Does your vagina have a brand?” inspired Sitek, so that it made sense to write a song that celebrated the vagina with him.

“This song could be considered an answer to Trump. But I believe the idea of powerful female sexuality is much bigger than any populist megalomaniac man … Vagina is bigger than Trump,” she told The Guardian.

Tolokonnikova thinks “patriarchal and misogynist ideas” spread like a sexually transmitted disease.

“Politicians are praising ‘strong leadership’. Trump openly supports the authoritarian methods of Vladimir Putin. And it’s scary. It’s not the world in which I want to live,” she said.

Pussy Riot is planning to release two more videos, both of which will tackle Russian and US politics. — BM, GMA News