White Trash & "Gummo"

[Jennifer A Young]

Has anyone seen the movie "Gummo".  It is one of the most disturbing pieces
of cinema I have witnessed lately.  I rented it.  In Xenia Ohio, teens who
some might describe as "white trash"  wander around town generally being
degenerate and violent.  The cat harvesting was more that I could bear, and
the glue sniffing was pitiful.   It seemed like these teens were suffering
from fatal boredom, ignorance, and feelings of hopelessness.  The eerie
thing about the movie is I have known people with this mentality.  For
instance, neighbors of mine, who my brother and I called "the animals",
mutilated a doberman pup and killed it.  They decided to take the tail
lopping in to their own hands instead of a vets.  The father took a butcher
knife, which was not sterile or sharp enough and sawed the tail into a mess.
These folks made my brother and I uncomfortable, because the teens, as well
as the dad were in a perpetual grapple /boxing match.  I'm no sociologist,
pyschologist, or anthropologist, but  these folks are a part of American
Culture and deserve study beyond the "Roadkill Cookbook".  People in
Indiana, where I am from, have a long standing joke which attributed
Indiana's "rednecks" to the migration of folks from Kentucky to here.
People are a trip!  Kelly's comments just reminded me of this.

-----Original Message----
From: digloria at mindspring.com <digloria at mindspring.com>
To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Date: Sunday, April 25, 1999 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: suicide note


>as for /dave/'s comments:  we've had this conversation among some of at LBO
>who subscribe to another list.  when i taught at very elite liberal arts
>colleges i discovered that thee is a tremendous hostitility to 'white
>trash'   they were even quite capable, like that web site demonstrated, of
>providing a very similar analysis of what white trash folks wore, how they
>behaved, what kinds of cars they drove.  even the food!  as i recall
>indications of fundamental white trashness:  ramen noodles, kool-aid,
>yoohoo, tang, little debbie snacks, any kind of casserole, slim jims,
>pickled pigs feet and the like, hostess snacks.
>
>there is an incredible hostitlity to white trash and you'd be surprised at
>who is actually considered so.  oh and there is, as the website noted, a
>distinction between hicks and white trash.  hicks have ambition, they try
>to be middle class.  white trash are lazy, shifty, irresponsible, dumb,
>oversexed, poor planners who live for today, and dirty.
>
>probably not too far from the image some on this list have of yer average
>gun toting yahoo ey?
>
>kelley
>