I Was Thinking About…The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
By Andy Lee
Few documentaries peek behind the curtain of a notorious family quite like The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. This 2009 film by director Julien Nitzberg provides a rare glimpse into the chaotic world of the White family, self-proclaimed redneck hillbilly outlaws who take pride in raising hell. Their strange story is a trip, but it also raises some bigger questions we all wrestle with about family, loyalty, and our complicated relationships with the past.
The documentary centers around the surviving members of the White family, led by matriarch Bertie Mae. We meet an array of her descendants, including the eccentric Jesco White, known for his “mountain dancing.” Despite having half the family in prison, the Whites speak lovingly of their tight bonds and wild antics.
As you watch their candid interviews and follow their day-to-day misadventures, you don’t know whether to root for them or recoil in horror. On one hand, their storied tradition of bootlegging, public drunkenness, theft, and violence seems horrific. They brag about skirmishes with neighbors and narrowly surviving their own destructive tendencies. Their actions inflict generational damage, both within the family and on the community, perpetuating negative Appalachian stereotypes.
Yet, you can’t help but appreciate their fierce family pride and take joy in their zeal for life. The Whites own who they are, unvarnished and unfiltered. They embrace heritage over propriety, to anarchic and chaotic ends. Their free-spiritedness and differences be damned attitude is oddly liberating.
This contradiction left me reflecting on how we each navigate the push and pull between honoring our roots and acknowledging their troublesome aspects. The Whites revel in their outlaw infamy, remaining stuck in past cycles of deviance. Breaking generational patterns is hard work requiring honest self-reflection most avoid.
But total denial of our history’s darker corners breeds ignorance, not healing. Progress lies in the difficult path between rejecting shameful legacies entirely and romanticizing their misdeeds. We must learn from the past’s mistakes to build a just future, while still honoring our ancestors’ humanity.
The unrepentant pride of the Whites makes an odd contrast to America’s puritan roots. But perhaps they represent an undercurrent that’s always existed alongside buttoned-up propriety. We espouse morality tales yet remain fascinated by eccentric rogues flouting convention.
In the end, the Whites remain a fascinating contradiction – outrageous yet endearing, alarming yet appealing. America embraces no shortage of lovable rascals, and they slot comfortably, if a bit extremely, within this tradition. We shake our heads yet stay glued to the spectacle.
I encourage anyone intrigued by these themes of family, reputation, and heritage to watch The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia and reflect on the questions it raises. By exploring the lives of complex real people like the Whites, perhaps we gain insight into how to balance embracing identity while acknowledging past harms. None of our family stories are black and white, but wrestling honestly with their nuances helps us move forward with more compassion and understanding.
For today, I was just thinking about the Whites of West Virginia, whose wild legacy forces us to confront questions of family, reputation, and our relationship with the past. However far we may wander from our roots, that original soil remains imprinted within us, for better and worse.
Stay curious, keep exploring. 😊
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I was thinking about... 