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(A made for television video by Jacob Young) a review by Jack Wright Dancing Outlaw , one of nine video documentaries from the television series "Different Drummer" produced for PBS, has become an underground cult classic. It has been seen, copied (bootlegged) and passed on from friend to friend all across the USA and beyond. The central character, Jesco White, featured in the Dancing Outlaw, has become one of the most compelling "real life" characters to show up on a picture tube in the last decade or longer. Jesco's natural ability as a frank, open, and powerful storyteller works very well when he looks into the camera and tells us his life's adventures. It doesn't hurt that he is an outrageous dancer and is presented as a multiple personality. It also helps that his adventures in a rowdy, impoverished, Boone County, West Virginia family are unlike any most of us have experienced and thus it brings a bit of voyeuristic drama to our otherwise sedate lives. Jacob Young, the director who brought Dancing Outlaw to the screen, has worked diligently all his professional life to bring his audience unusual characters from the state of West Virginia. These character studies have made up the PBS series "Different Drummer" he produced at WNPB-TV, Morgantown, and have aired not only over the West Virginia public television system but internationally as well. The shows focus on flamboyant personalities that can sustain and interest an audience throughout their thirty minute time slots. Dancing Outlaw won an Emmy (television's Oscar equivalent) as well as several other prestigious awards including one at the American Film Institute's annual film and video festival. The power behind Young's portrait of Jesco White also brings to bear the image that many people have of hillbillies. Jesco's character rings all the bells concerning negative images and stereotypes of mountain people. He is poor, he curses, he argues with and threatens his wife, and he's been to reform school twice. He used to get high, not only on alcohol but by snorting ("huffing") lighter fluid. He threatens violence to people and has no visible means of support. He is involved in a deadly blood feud up the holler. He also dances to hillbilly music and entertains at parties and concerts. Jesco's wife, Norma, insists that Jesco also has three personalities, one of them being Elvis. Jesco goes on, spinning a powerful tale on camera, graphically describing a neighbor's senseless murder of his father. It is a personal family tragedy, epic in its dramatic scope, one that tears at the heart of the viewer. This impassioned tale is embellished by a multiple telling of the event, which is intercut between Jesco, his wife, his mother, and his brother, each adding their side of the emotive story. The power of the story is magnified with Jesco's simultaneous visit to his father's grave whose tombstone reads, "Gone But Not Forgotten." There is wonderful archival video footage of the elder White, Jesco's father D. Ray, flatfoot dancing and singing to a live banjo player. It serves as sort of a dreamy recollection of the "best mountain dancer in these parts." Jesco's widowed mother goes on to tell how D. Ray was "the number one, the worldwide... He knew 52 more dance steps than any other dancer." This extremely powerful sequence is capped with a huge party outside a house trailer where family members race around the yard in motored vehicles, spinning tires in muddy terrain. In a scene driven by raw rock-and-roll music underneath a glorious near-pandemonium pitch, they gun their engines, spin doughnuts, and frequently come close to losing control. The White family is having a party unlike anything we have ever seen. Is this a movie or is it real people? Jesco's mother then laments that since her children's father got killed they have gone wild and cannot be controlled. Noticeably absent from the party is Jesco. He has had a falling out with his family and considers himself the black sheep. He has served as the narrator, of sorts, throughout the video. He has idealized his father and strives to fill his shoes as the best mountain dancer "in these parts." The final dancing scene takes place in an unidentified dance hall where Jesco and his electric guitar player give a signature performance, playing a poignant instrumental rendition of Wildwood Flower. There is high drama in this short television show that seems to capture the imagination of many who view it. WNPB has sold several thousand copies of the program—their most lucrative show to date. Its popularity led to Jesco's invitation, by Tom Arnold, to do a guest performance on the Roseanne television show in 1994. Others have reacted very negatively to Dancing Outlaw because of its depiction and representation of Appalachian people. They see the stories and the video pictures of rundown trailers and deteriorating coal camp shacks as exploitive, reinforcing negative media images of Appalachian culture. Stereotype is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as a conventional, formulaic, and usually oversimplified conception, opinion, or belief. Further it says, "a person, group, event, or issue considered to typify or conform to an unvarying pattern or manner, lacking any individuality." This definition is encompassing and makes concrete an abstract idea that is sometimes hard to quantify and prove in modern scholarship. After viewing the program and reflecting on this definition it is easy to see that there is a complex story here that is not easily categorized or dismissed as mere stereotype. The power of the story is mythic in its import and evokes deep emotion when seen by most audiences. It is sad and funny. It might be easy to write it off as a bad representation of Appalachian culture but that does a serious disservice to the shows integrity as a valid piece of work. In looking to a wide variety of sources, I have not been able to locate a serious and scholarly criticism of the show that intelligently discusses its merits and failures. It has gone virtually unmentioned in print in Appalachian studies circles in terms of healthy argument. Perhaps some feel that it is so blatant and repulsive in its portrayal that it deserves no response. This type of intellectual evasion does serious damage to the name of enlightened discourse. Jerry Williamson, editor of the Appalachian Journal, A Regional Studies Review, has published an enlightening interview with director Jacob Young (Spring, 1994, Vol 21, #3.) Since that time, no one to my knowledge has come forward with a critical study defining the parameters of Young's sins or virtues in presenting these images. Right along with Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachian Portraits, Jacob Young's Dancing Outlaw hits upon cords of emotion, drama and truth. They seem to resonate so deeply that it calls for us personally to look closely into ourselves and our relationship to our community for the reasons why. |