Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken at Nashville Film Festival

Melissa Etheridge appears in a series streaming on Paramount Plus as of July 7^th, entitled “Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken.” The two episodes are being shown on Sunday, September 22, from 7 to 9 p.m. as part of the Nashville Film Festival. 

A native of Leavenworth, Kansas, Etheridge is shown visiting the Topeka Correctional Facility for Women, after corresponding with many of the inmates for 9 months prior. It was a homecoming of sorts. Like Johnny Cash, she had performed at a Kansas prison when she was only 12 years old in 1973. Brian Morrow and Amy Scott directed the series. Five inmates of the prison (Andrea, Cierra, Jessica, Kristin and Leigh) are shown reading the letters they wrote to Etheridge.

Saying that their letters inspired her, Melissa wrote original music for the concert. She said, “I realize I can’t save anyone, but I’m looking to inspire.”  Ms. Etheridge composed a song, especially for the inmates of the Topeka Prison.  The actual creative process is seen as Etheridge discusses the genesis of the song. Band member Joe Ayoub tells us that they worked up the band’s part from Friday to Sunday.

HIGH POINTS

Jermaine Wilson, Mayor of Leavenworth.

The Mayor of Leavenworth, Jermaine Wilson, who did 3 years in prison himself, talks with Etheridge about the upcoming concert. Wilson and Etheridge stressed that they wanted to inspire and encourage the imprisoned felons, saying, “Mistakes don’t define you. You are not a failure, You are not a mistake, You were created on purpose for a purpose. The best I can do is to be an example, a light that holds you up and says you matter.”

PRISON STATISTICS

Meghan Davis, an employee of the facility, said that the likelihood of a woman being the victim of a crime never drops for women as it does for men. Women do not grow up and become less likely to become victims of crime. In fact, over the last 40 years, there has been an 84% increase in women convicted of crimes and imprisoned, many of them crimes that originated with a drug habit.

Of the 760 women incarcerated in Topeka, 500 are mothers or grandmothers. Prison employee Dani Essman talked about the problem of many of the imprisoned women losing their identity. One of the women interviewed onscreen expressed gratitude for Etheridge’s actions, saying, “We were just grateful that she gave a shit.”

 POIGNANT SHARE

Melissa and her then-partner Julie Cypher had 2 children, Bailey Jean and Beckett. Cypher became pregnant via artificial insemination using sperm donated by musician David Crosby. Cypher and Etheridge separated in 2000. On May 13, 2020, Etheridge announced on Twitter that Beckett, her son with Cypher, had died of causes related to opioid addiction at the age of 21. (Her daughter, Bailey Jean, graduated from Columbia in 2019).  Etheridge said, “I miss him here, but I know he is here (gesturing upwards).”

Etheridge opened up about her son Beckett’s May 13, 2020 death. Beckett was born on November 18, 1998. Etheridge explained Beckett’s addiction as stemming from Vicodin he was administered after a snowboarding injury. His addiction quickly spiraled out of control. Beckett was 21 when the police found him dead after a wellness check that Melissa and her former partner Julie Cypher requested.

THE ODD

I found Melissa Etheridge’s sharing of her personal trauma brave, but odd.

She said, “I do not let it take me out of my own sense of well-being.  You can accept a person’s choices and it doesn’t have to destroy you.” She seemed remarkably calm and distanced from grief at the death of her son. I couldn’t help but wonder if, like the devotees of the new meditation start-up Jhourney, Etheridge has internalized the life rule “True peace comes from accepting things just as they are.” I admit that I was taken aback at the dispassionate way Etheridge discussed the tragedy of her 21-year-old son’s death. It was shocking and surprising; she seemed almost clinically detached. The death had taken place three years prior. That may explain the low-key dispassionate discussion that the film showcases.

 

THE GOAL

The goal of bringing hope to the incarcerated women of the Topeka Correctional Facility for Women was worthwhile and deserving of support. The plea for accepting drugs for therapeutic purposes is also a progressive step forward, just as Etheridge’s original song “I Need to Wake Up,” written for Al Gore’s 2007 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” won the Academy Award in service of that cause.

I couldn’t help but think of how our weather patterns might be different if Florida and the candidate’s brother (Jeb Bush) had not prevailed in placing George W. Bush in the White House in 2000, the year of the hanging Chad. Instead, a candidate was installed whose party had no plan at all to address global warming—and still does not. Our weather reflects this when we could have had 25 years to attempt to head off the tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and fires that are now routine. Al Gore, unlike the GOP candidate of 2024, stepped aside with decorum rather than subject the nation to the long drawn-out process of challenging a loss that was never conclusively proven to everyone’s satisfaction.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The 2 part serial look into Melissa Etheridge’s life and creative process was interesting but became visually repetitive. There were many shots of Etheridge performing on the temporary stage set up outside the prison walls. There were many interviews with the five inmates, Andrea, Cierra, Jessica, Kristi, and Leigh. What the women shared was truly engrossing, but there may have been a better way to translate their heartfelt words onto film, rather than having the women read them, over and over.

What comes through loud and clear is that Melissa Etheridge is a time-tested talent. At one point she asks the assembled women if they are familiar with her music. Some are not. For them she described her audience as those aged 50 and up. Her Grammy-winning years were approximately 1993 through 2007. This series is a tribute to a true talent trying to bring redemption and empowerment to the incarcerated female prisoners. It was a wonderful humanitarian concept.

The visual repetition was the weak point of the two-episode series, which will screen at the Nashville Film Festival on Sunday, September 22^nd, from 7 to 9 p.m. It’s a pleasure to watch a Top-Notch Singer/Songwriter writing and performing her work and even tracing the birth of a new song. Etheridge’s social conscience cannot be denied. She has established the Etheridge Foundation to promote worthy causes. This two-part Paramount Plus series is a testament to her efforts.