We Are the Shaggs Documentary Looks at the Women Behind the Musical Myth

Dot and Betty Wiggin in a still from We Are the Shaggs. Photo courtesy of the Calgary International Film Festival.

For decades, the Shaggs have existed in the veil between urban legend and cult classic. When you first hear about their story it’s hard to resist: three sisters form a band at their father’s insistence due to a family prophecy that predicts their rise to fame. The result was the record Philosophy of the World, which has been described as one of the worst albums of all time, and also heralded as an iconic piece of outsider art by the likes of Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa.

Director Ken Kwapis was “completely gobsmacked” upon his first discovery of the Shaggs debut record and while he was equally captivated by the mythos behind the band, his documentary We Are the Shaggs, aims to focus on the women behind the legend. 

“What I really wanted to do is humanize the sisters,” he says, noting that many accounts of the band have portrayed them as “backwoods curiosities.” For Kwapis, the documentary became an opportunity to give Dot and Betty Wiggin greater ownership over their own story, and ask audiences to take their music seriously, not simply as an example of outsider art, but as the work of musicians and songwriters with something of their own to say.

Kwapis doesn’t ignore the more difficult elements of the sisters’ story, but instead, he expands the films’ focus, exploring the stage production of The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, the process of making violin arrangements for several of the Shaggs songs for the duo String Noise, and the band’s reunion show at Solid Sound in 2017. Through a series of conversations with both Dot and Betty Wiggin, the women are allowed to guide the documentary and share both their own perspectives on the legacy of their music, and their lives now. 

The film makes the compelling case to take Dot seriously as a songwriter. “One of the things that I find really fascinating about the Shaggs music, is there's a kind of a disconnect between the emotional content of the songs, which often is very heartfelt… sometimes painfully honest, and the musical textures, which are almost avant-garde,” Kwapis argues. “So you have lyrics like ‘I wonder about the stars above. I wonder about the birds that fly. I wonder about your love. But most of all, I wonder why you make me cry.’ It's such a beautiful lyric, and yet it's embedded in musical textures that feel so radical.”

The Shaggs publicity photo. Photo credit: Geoffrey Weiss.

One of the documentary’s interviewees, author Susan Rogers, highlights the sheer magnitude of misogyny the Shaggs dealt with in their critical appraisal. Rogers points out how bizarre it was to assume that the band couldn’t have possibly made any of their artistic choices in instrumentation or lyrics intentionally. 

Kwapis echoes her argument adding, “I feel like [Dot’s] songwriting is not too far off from someone like Brian Wilson. I mean think of a song like the Beach Boys song ‘In My Room.’ This is a song about how valuable it is to be alone in my bedroom – that could easily have been a Dot Wiggins song,” he says. 

Another interview subject in the film, composer Eric Lyon, argues the merit of another track, Philosophy of the World, which he says “diagnoses a problem that can only be remedied by radical empathy.” 

That description of Philosophy of the World, might lie at the heart of the film. The philosophy is clearest in the film's quieter moments, as Kwapis said it was important for him to end the documentary by showing Dot and Betty's everyday lives. While following Dot at her church, Dot muses about the different kinds of ladybugs she encounters. To Kwapis, the moment feels like catching her “in a pre-songwriting mode,” saying “I wouldn't be surprised if she comes up with a song about ladybugs.”

It’s an inviting way to approach a band whose story has so often been treated as a curiosity. We Are the Shaggs doesn’t need to settle the debate of whether the band was simply “good” or “bad.” Instead, Kwapis asks the audience to listen more closely, and see the women who were there all along.

We Are the Shaggs will have its Alberta Premiere with the Calgary International Film Festival on Monday, September 28th at Globe Cinema. Director Ken Kwapis will be at Shelf Life Books for a discussion about the film and book signing on Sunday, September 27th.