This is one of those documentaries that falls into the "Look at the Crazy" category. And these people are crazy. Crazy scary, or scary crazy I can't tell which. I'm hard pressed to decide on what is the scariest part of this movie. Every character is terrifying. Every single member of this family bothered me on some deep human level. I'm glad it's only an hour and a half long because I'm not sure I could take more. Though I could watch endless clips of them trying to order mozzarella sticks at Taco bell
At one point one Kirk White does a few lines of oxy in her hospital room immediately after giving birth to her baby. The baby is subsequently taken away to her dismay. She does agree to go into treatment to get her baby back but admits that she'll just start back up as soon as she is out. Though by the end of the movie she has been clean for three months and granted visitation rights.
The party they have before she goes into rehab is pretty fascinating, four or five women with really deep voices (seriously one of them, Sue Bob, has a voice deeper than Dr. Girlfriend's from the Venture Brothers) doing weird "sexy" dances with each other in the parking lot of a bowling alley. I've frequently heard oxycontin referred to as Hillbilly Heroin but never have I seen a slang term so vividly come to life.
The White's do, however, have their good qualities. They are at times a fiercely loyal family. The family matriarch, Bertie Mae White took in over thirty orphans and raised them as her own. I suppose you could ask to what end, but that's not something I'd do or anyone in my family would consider doing. It is actually pretty touching when Jesco White tours his family cemetery. I don't know that the White family is that different than a lot of other backwoods West Virginia coal families are but they've been singled out due to D. Ray White's prominence as a mountain dancer. A tradition which Jesco mastered and was featured in The Dancing Outlaw. These are people who have the deck continually stacked against them, as do most of the poor people in this country but as D Ray and Bertie Mae's oldest daughter says at the end, "At least people know who the fuck we are."
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