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The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
23-Nov-2010
The other day I came across this movie/documentary entitled The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009). The date says 2009 but the documentary was made in 1991 and I don't know the explanation for the 18 years time span. In any event I give this a 2.5 stars and if you have good command of English language deciphering the accents, you may enjoy this movie.
I think it is not a documentary in the classic sense but if you're intersted in life in Applachia or at least knowing about it this would be a good movie to watch. Not Oscar worthy by any stretch of imagination but some entertainment! They also have English subtitles because they know many of the red blooded Americans themselves will have a hard time understanding the accents!
This film is about the White family whose family patriarch was Donte Vixen Ray (Donald Ray) White (1927–1985). D Ray (pictured in this blog) was a Mountain Dancer and you can see him in this other (PBS?) documentary Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot and Tap and he is shown in 72:33 of the video and goes about 12 minutes or so.
D Ray like most other people in rural West Virginia started as a Coal Miner and was upset about the way Mining companies treated the Miners by paying them in Mining company "money" which was only good in the company store and couldn't be spent anywhere else. This way the Mining companies were really keeping the Miners as slaves and the practice went on for quite a while.
D Ray went on to become a Mountain Dancer and an Entertainer but I don't think he made much money out of it. In the Wild and Wonderful movie they say that he understood Social Security very well and worked the entitlement system to get free Government money for himself and the family. One daughter admits she "asked" to be a certified as crazy so she could get disability and get high and drunk all the time! I don't know the legality of many of the incriminating things that they say or do in this movie. By the way this is not a movie for children to watch. R rated. The Sheriff says they've had more problems with the Whites in Boone county than any other family in the history of WV!
D Ray and his wife had 13 children and the movie is really not about D Ray but the White family. ALL 13 children ended up being fucked up to the nth degree! I mean they themselves talk about as being one fucked up family and they don't even know why or how to explain it! You know the expression that some parents use for their child(ren) not amounting to anything? Well these 13 children sure proved it!
Few of the 13 died in accidents, stabbings and basically for being fucked up one way or another! D Ray himself was killed in a fight and his daughter's boyfriend started the fight. Another one was shot by his nephew 3 times and when they interviewed the nephew in jail he said he doesn't know why he really shot his uncle and thinks because he has a good relations with the Judge he'll get suspended sentence. He got 50 years to life with eligibility for parole in 25 years!
The most famous of the 13 is Jesco White who made another film which you can find in the links above. He is famous but fucked up none-the-less! He snored so much gasoline that Doctors diagosed him as being brain damaged with a hole in his head! He also got a tattoo with 2 faces next to each other, one being Elvis (happy) and one being Charles Manson (dead man living :-).
The rest of the clan are on drugs, entitlements and talking drunk and all. One of them has a baby but the State won't let her take the baby home because she is too fucked up and the baby will be in danger! So after a while she decides to have one big party and go rehab the next day, hung over and all! The party scene itself in a bar, probably the only bar, in the backwoods of WV is a treat!
Legend has it that Sargord's family is about 1/32 related to the White family! I usually don't recommend watching trailers but in this case you may want to watch this trailer and see if this is your cup of tea. So put on your tapping shoes and ask the family to gather up and dance some mountain dancing and howling! Hooooooooooouuuuuuu!
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The movie has some subtitles 4 more u can contact the filmmakers
by Anonymouse on Mon Nov 29, 2010 07:59 AM PSTContact them at the right hand side of this Press Contact link to the film. Some of the DVD versions may have the option for subtitles. I saw it streaming and didn't see the subtitles option although as I said many parts have English subtitles on the English dialogues!
I provided the link to the film in the blog.
Everything is sacred
subtitles
by WVsean on Mon Nov 29, 2010 07:48 AM PSTdoes anyone know where I could find subtitles in english, for this movie? i want to show it to my friend overseas, and can't expect her to try to decipher the accents.
sean.rickard@hotmail.com
any help is very appreciated.
Here's George Bush's attempt at hoe-down!
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 05:10 PM PSTMore stupidity!
Everything is sacred
That scene is classic!
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 04:59 PM PSTI think that's the best part of the movie Deliverance. Although the dance is not hoe-down. Hoe-down is what Ashlee Simpson did on Saturday Night Live when her lip synching was caught and she did a hoe-down! Very stupid!
Everything is sacred
Anonymouse - I enjoyed the clips. Thanks.
by MM on Tue Nov 23, 2010 04:46 PM PSTHere is a clip from the movie Deliverance which brought a bid of life to ho-down music via the dueling banjos
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8
notice the old man break into clogging at 2:51
Rea did I say/ask anything about being serious or not serious?!
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:58 PM PSTEverything is sacred
Dear Mouse, I do take you seriously
by Rea on Tue Nov 23, 2010 12:54 PM PSTBut, somehow, you always end up making me laugh.
Cmok, cmok. ;o)
I think mountain dance is a combo Irish and Iranian! A little.
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:30 AM PSTI think art in general has influences from all over the world and while it is hard to imagine people in WV who were mostly illiterate knew about anywhere else in USA much less Ireland and Iran, knew those steps and hand gestures, but it is their tradition.
I don't like the ho down steps, seems stupid, but the rest especially the parts where D Ray dances are interesting. They also have some couples dancing.
After reading more about that project looks like due to low funding they had to shot the project in video (VHS) so the quality is not that good but it is better than nothing.
Everything is sacred
Yes, Anonymouse, dance I will watch
by Anahid Hojjati on Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:24 AM PSTThanks Anonymouse, I like watching dances better than watching troubled families. I am interested to know how they dance. I don't know why i think it might have some similarities to some kind of Iranian dance. No insult to Iranians is meant by this comment of mine.
Anahid jaan you can watch the other clip I provided.
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 11:19 AM PSTThe other clip Talking Feet: Solo Southern Dance: Buck, Flatfoot and Tap is a documentary funded by Smithsonian in 1985 - 87 and it is separate from the Wild and Wonderful movie. In that video you may be interested in the traditional Appalachian mountain dances. That clip is all kosher
As for Sargord he is like a dumb hard headed kid in a rough and tough family (i.com ;-) and the only way the family knows how to deal with him is through corporal punishment! As we say in Farsi
مثل فیل بان باید بالاسرش بود!
Everything is sacred
Dear Anonymouse, thanks for this blog
by Anahid Hojjati on Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:59 AM PSTDear Anonymouse, thanks for your blog which accounts this very troubled family. I am not sure I will watch the movie but reading your blog was interesting. Anon jan, You are too hard on Sargord, he is not as bad as you think.
N. VA is next to DC home of free museums and everything else.
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 07:53 AM PSTEverything is sacred
They say in the movie that WV is like a colonial African country
by Anonymouse on Tue Nov 23, 2010 07:42 AM PSTLike an African country - in the middle of USA - where the industrial countries go there to take advantage of their natural resources and leave them nothing in return.
One of the reasons poverty is rampant in WV or other Appalachian areas like Kentucky, Tennessee or rural Virginia is that the mining companies treated the miners like slaves!
As I said in the blog when you work for a company and get paid in funny money that can only be spent in the company store and nowhere else and this goes on for 20 or 30 years, it has a profound impact.
It makes people distrustful of anyone and stricken so much that they don't even feel like moving or going anywhere else. WV is really nice though with great landscaping and the late Senator Byrd (a KKK member in his youth) brought his home state billions of federal Dollars and the highway system in WV is named after him. Snaking through mountains and big bridges over big gaps.
Everything is sacred
V.A still sucks though
by Parthianshot91 on Tue Nov 23, 2010 07:37 AM PSTCause of the fact that it's boring as hell and there's not much to do. I wanna move out to N.Y, Chicago or L.A soon, anywhere other than this place.
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"They are not afraid of the ideology alone, but of the detemination and will of the men behind it"
West V.A
by Parthianshot91 on Tue Nov 23, 2010 07:34 AM PSTIs one of the most backwards and poverty stricken areas I've been to in the U.s, Northern Virginia is the exact opposite though, you don't even feel like you're living in the south, no redneck accents here.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"They are not afraid of the ideology alone, but of the detemination and will of the men behind it"