Wild, Wonderful, White Criminality: Images of “White Trash” Appalachia

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• 作者：Stephen T. Young
• 刊名：Critical Criminology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：25
• 期：1
• 页码：103-117
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Criminology and Criminal Justice, general;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1572-9877
• 卷排序：25

文摘

Films in no small way have the ability to reflect and shape public perceptions. The following is a discussion of how three documentaries set in rural West Virginia, Dancing Outlaw (1991), The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009), and Oxyana (2013) have strengthened the idea of the “white trash criminal” in American discourse. The films draw upon stereotypical understandings of rural people—poverty, drug use, domestic violence, dependence—and contribute to the cultural production and exclusion of a “white trash” other. However, creation of this particular figure often occurs without consideration of a broader history, local political economies, intra-race conflict (whites vs. “white trash”) and generational poverty. The aim here is to confront and contest contemporary understandings of the “white trash” other, in order to refocus everyday discussions on the lived realities of rural Appalachia.