SHUT UP & SING
R, 93 minutes

It was during a concert at London’s Shepherd’s Bush theater in 2003 that the Dixie Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines spoke for her bandmates and declared: “We’re ashamed that Bush is from Texas.”

Ms. Maines’s words struck home, not only because she was the lead singer of a country band that counted among its fans many Bush supporters, but because she chose to make the statement in a city that was, at the time, hostile to the president and America as a whole.

In response to what the band sees as an innocuous statement, the Chicks were banned by country radio, subjected to scathing criticisms, and endured various protests and organized CD destruction, all of which led the group to create a musically strong and politically defiant album that earned them a cult status among opponents to the war.

But their musical rebuttal and newfound fans have not (yet) met their expectations for monetary success. And so today they are releasing “Shut Up & Sing,” a documentary that adds up to little more than a vanity project for the band, an effort to persuade viewers to translate their admiration into album and concert sales.

This sanctimonious, overly long crusade is like an infomercial asking for a pledge of support. The Chicks are exceedingly appealing figures, but it’s hard to empathize with impugned artists who have a highly successful new album and whose biggest concern is whether they’ll still be playing huge stadiums in the South (since they have no trouble doing so in Canada and most of the rest of the country).

In the film, Ms. Maines is shocked at what the president has to say about her. Asked what he thought of the controversy, Mr. Bush says: “The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say. But they shouldn’t have their feelings hurt just because some people don’t want to buy their records.”

Ms. Maines subsequently responds with an eloquent: “Dumb f—!”

This isn’t remarkable because Ms. Maines still can’t stop herself from flippantly disrespecting the president on camera, or because of her language. It’s just that she still doesn’t get it. If Ms. Maines’s feelings hadn’t been hurt, she likely wouldn’t be reduced to cursing at a television screen.