The trailer for Jagged, a documentary about Canadian singer Alanis Morissette’s global breakthrough album Jagged Little Pill, debuted on Tuesday.
“People would say, ‘Wow, you’re so brave, you’re so empowering.’ I can’t write all these songs without obviously having been dis-empowered,” Morissette says in the teaser.
“Empowerment as a young woman in the ‘90s, singing about it, was not good news for the patriarchy. You were just immediately shut down.”
In addition to the Ottawa-born singer, the trailer includes comments from Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins (who played in Morissette’s band at the time), Shirley Manson of Garbage and filmmaker Kevin Smith.
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Jagged had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September but Morissette decided not to promote it and called it “salacious.”
She explained, in a statement: “Not unlike many ‘stories’ and unauthorized biographies out there over the years, this one includes implications and facts that are simply not true. While there is beauty and some elements of accuracy in this/my story to be sure — I ultimately won’t be supporting someone else’s reductive take on a story much too nuanced for them to ever grasp or tell.”
In the doc, Morissette alleges she was sexually assaulted as a teenager. “It took me years in therapy to even admit there had been any kind of victimization on my part,” she said. “I would always say I was consenting, and then I’d be reminded like ‘Hey, you were 15, you’re not consenting at 15.’ Now I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, they’re all pedophiles. It’s all statutory rape.’”
(At the time, the legal age of consent in Canada was 14 but it does not apply when there is a relationship of trust, authority or dependency.)
Morissette released Jagged Little Pill globally in 1995 after putting out two dance-pop albums in Canada in the early ‘90s. The groundbreaking collaboration with songwriter-producer Glen Ballard – which spawned hits like “You Oughta Know," "Ironic" and “Hand In My Pocket” – became one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Jagged premieres in Canada on Nov. 19 on Crave (part of Bell Media, owner of this website).