Men Doing Feminist Work: Adam Horovitz

The Beastie Boys are kind of well-known these days for having learned some feminist lessons early on  in their careers, and with trying to make up for mistakes in their past. And I had heard a lot about all of that when Adam Yauch passed away recently.  But what I hadn't known was that Adam Horovitz and Kathleen Hanna are longtime partners, or that he did so much over the years to support Hanna during her illness, some of which will be revealed in the upcoming documentary about Hanna, The Punk Singer.  I never thought this blog would quote Entertainment Weekly, but here goes:

The Punk Singer is no dry polemic and it’s not just for hardcore fans of the music. There’s good laughs, and, my, what a romance. The movie revisits the early days of Hanna’s relationship with Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz, whom she married in 2006. The scenes of him at her side through her illness and the literal loss of her voice paint such a warm portrait of a working partnership. Punk Singer producer and good friend Tamra Davis, who’s married to Mike D., agrees. “I would read back in Bikini Kill press ‘They don’t like men, they don’t like men.’ And I really wanted to make sure that this film didn’t ever have that opinion because that’s not what that message was ever about. Kathleen and Adam have this incredible love story.”   

 Hanna’s eyes well when she talks about her husband’s devotion to her throughout these trying several years. “He’s so awesome I want to scream it from the mountains,” she says. “I mean, dude hooked me up with an IV for eight months every day.”

So Horovitz is pro-feminist in his professional life, but he's also doing what is sometimes the most important feminist work for men to do, in his day-to-day life, in his relationship with his partner. The filmmaker thought this supportive relationship was important enough that Horovitz is the only man on camera during the entire movie:

 “It wasn’t a given in the beginning,” Anderson said. “I think a lot of people would expect that because of this story of Kathleen -- 'President Feminist' -- that Adam is not going to be in there. First of all, I know what a cool, amazing and supportive relationship they have. There was no assumption whether he would be in or out, but over the course of filming it became really apparent that this is not only Kathleen’s husband but it’s also her best friend. “

The film's site is here.

A clip from the movie, which I can't wait to see: