Netflix Movie Monday

My entire life, I've always lived in a redneck state.  Usually you can tell if you live in one if you recognize anyone on peopleofwalmart.com, and living in one of the most obese states is a dead giveaway.  I spent the first 18 years of my life in South Carolina (I'm surprised they aren't in the top 10 for obesity), went to college in Arkansas for four years of undergrad and a year of grad school (#3 most obese), moved to West Virginia for a year (most obese), before heading back to Arkansas for two years and finally settling in Tennessee (#7) for the past fives years. Who knows where I will be down the road but hopefully I'll permanently plant my routes somewhere out West someday (surprisingly, Alaska is the most obese Western State.  Guess they need a little less ice fishing and a little more cardio).

But out of all the states I've lived in, I liked West Virginia the least.  Girls were so bad there that I literally cut my own hair because I just didn't have anyone to impress.  Fortunately I only spent a year teaching fifth grade there.  But this week's movie portrays a crazy, trashy family in the film The Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.

The Whites are portrayed as America's last outlaw family and are a bunch of Appalachian mountain dwellers, addicted to too many drugs, who share a lot of tap-dancing and ruckus causing.  The documentary follows the family for a year and interviews many of their relatives and townsfolk.

At first you find a lot of humor in the film because the people that are presented don't seem like real life. They are like people you see in some cheesy dark comedy who doesn't really exist.  But then you start to realize they obviously have no chance to become contributing members of society and their children will most likely follow the same path, which is a sad thing to realize.

 

The documentary is an interesting watch not only to see an interesting character study but to see that people really live that way.  It also makes you never want to go to West Virginia.