We Are the Shaggs trailer revisits cult 1969 album
A new trailer for We Are the Shaggs revisits the strange afterlife of a 1969 album that was dismissed on release and later taken up by famous admirers.
The film is a documentary about the legacy of the Shaggs, directed by Ken Kwapis. It premiered at South by Southwest in March, and its producers are now entertaining offers from distributors with the hope of a cinema release early next year, according to Rolling Stone.
The Shaggs were sisters Betty, Dorothy — known as Dot — and Helen Wiggin, from rural New Hampshire, with a fourth sister also in the line-up. They formed the band in the late 1960s, but not by choice, after their father insisted they play together, the SXSW programme notes state. SXSW
Their album Philosophy of the World was recorded in 1969. It was counted among the favourite records of Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa. The music divided listeners then. It still does.
The trailer leans into that reaction. It shows first-time listeners hearing the Shaggs, alongside two of the Wiggin sisters reflecting on being pushed into a band as children. The film traces the early dismissal of the album and the later reappraisal that kept its songs in circulation.
Kwapis told Rolling Stone he wanted to humanise and dignify Dot, Betty and Helen Wiggin and argue for their music to be taken seriously. To build that case, he brought in composers, musicologists, record producers and culture writers as commentators.
No cinema date has been confirmed. The next step is a distribution deal.
What makes this stand out for a newcomer is the backstory. Most cult reissues centre on a band chasing success. Here, the players did not choose the stage, and the audience is still arguing about what they made.
