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Sometimes I'm not sure about things
So I get an email from my Appalachian Studies Association mailing list...a really great guy from one of the Mountaintop Removal activism groups sends information on a movie coming out about (The Dancing Outlaw) Jesco White's family, who live in Boone, WV, called "The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia."
Here's a clip:
The email I got was calling on a protest of the film because it DOES paint a fairly negative and stereotypical portrait of Appalachia (a region already alientated by negative stereotypes), but I'm not sure...I think I need to see it?
It's interesting that this is a documentary, an MTV film, and produced by Johnny Knoxville (who is himself an Appalachian, obviously...really...even if I didn't know this, I'd know this!), and promoted by Jackass. I don't know that it's good or bad, but it is "interesting."
http://www.jackassworld.com/wildwhites
Is it good or bad to expose this family? Is it honest about the trouble with Appalachian acceptance of their own stereotypes? Will it use comedy to illuminate the poverty and sorrow and small triumphs? Will it look beyond what's worth ridicule by mainstream culture to see something lovely and honest, yet dangerous and fractured, about Appalachia and its people? OR will it just be a "Goddamn, those fuckers are stupid," sort of deal? The assumption is that it will be a poking fun, without a heart. I don't know that the assumption is correct.
I understand the waryiness. I certainly can rip apart my cultural heritage more vehemently than outsiders at times, but it doesn't mean I don't see the beauty of where I come from. I'm inside it (at least halfway at all times), and I certainly get pissed when someone "outside" looks in and tells me, or others like me, that there's something wrong with all of us. I think that in-group/outsider division is very evident, and very sensitive for a lot of us. Some critic said that "Appalachia is to the South what the South is to the rest of the country...backwards and less than." West Virginia is a very, VERY strange place to the rest of the nation. It's the only state that is 100% Appalachian (since Appalachia is a region that crosses state boundaries). There are places in West Virginia in particular that are so far removed from what we are taught is "normal" for America, and American culture. But it's not "abnormal" it just grew differently? It had to be populated by people who could stand the hardships of the region. Place is so important to identity, it's the basis of everything. I'm not from West Virginia (though per't-ner't), but I know these people. These people are mine. And I can laugh at them, and be judgemental...but I don't know that I'm okay with everyone else doing it. Not because it's not funny (and sad, and wonderful, and sweet, and sheltered, and isolated, and full of love and woe), but because not everyone will LOVE IT depsite the negatives. I will always love it despite the negatives; I can't not, though I've tried. And I do get defensive, because ridicule of my culture always seems to be "okayed" by everyone. Like we somehow deserve it, and our problems are not a product of birth or region or inheritance or culture.
So, maybe (what I'm hoping) is that the love will be there through whatever is depicted. I really hope it's not just a way to sneer and act judgemental. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Here's a clip:
The email I got was calling on a protest of the film because it DOES paint a fairly negative and stereotypical portrait of Appalachia (a region already alientated by negative stereotypes), but I'm not sure...I think I need to see it?
It's interesting that this is a documentary, an MTV film, and produced by Johnny Knoxville (who is himself an Appalachian, obviously...really...even if I didn't know this, I'd know this!), and promoted by Jackass. I don't know that it's good or bad, but it is "interesting."
http://www.jackassworld.com/wildwhites
Is it good or bad to expose this family? Is it honest about the trouble with Appalachian acceptance of their own stereotypes? Will it use comedy to illuminate the poverty and sorrow and small triumphs? Will it look beyond what's worth ridicule by mainstream culture to see something lovely and honest, yet dangerous and fractured, about Appalachia and its people? OR will it just be a "Goddamn, those fuckers are stupid," sort of deal? The assumption is that it will be a poking fun, without a heart. I don't know that the assumption is correct.
I understand the waryiness. I certainly can rip apart my cultural heritage more vehemently than outsiders at times, but it doesn't mean I don't see the beauty of where I come from. I'm inside it (at least halfway at all times), and I certainly get pissed when someone "outside" looks in and tells me, or others like me, that there's something wrong with all of us. I think that in-group/outsider division is very evident, and very sensitive for a lot of us. Some critic said that "Appalachia is to the South what the South is to the rest of the country...backwards and less than." West Virginia is a very, VERY strange place to the rest of the nation. It's the only state that is 100% Appalachian (since Appalachia is a region that crosses state boundaries). There are places in West Virginia in particular that are so far removed from what we are taught is "normal" for America, and American culture. But it's not "abnormal" it just grew differently? It had to be populated by people who could stand the hardships of the region. Place is so important to identity, it's the basis of everything. I'm not from West Virginia (though per't-ner't), but I know these people. These people are mine. And I can laugh at them, and be judgemental...but I don't know that I'm okay with everyone else doing it. Not because it's not funny (and sad, and wonderful, and sweet, and sheltered, and isolated, and full of love and woe), but because not everyone will LOVE IT depsite the negatives. I will always love it despite the negatives; I can't not, though I've tried. And I do get defensive, because ridicule of my culture always seems to be "okayed" by everyone. Like we somehow deserve it, and our problems are not a product of birth or region or inheritance or culture.
So, maybe (what I'm hoping) is that the love will be there through whatever is depicted. I really hope it's not just a way to sneer and act judgemental. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
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