Bastard Out of Carolina (VHS)

In 1993, lesbian feminist poet turned novelist, Dorothy Allison published the heart wrenching novel this film is closely based upon. When it hit the screen, those of us who'd read the novel dashed off to see if the film was true to text. Anjelica Houston's directing debut was indeed as raving a success as was Allison’s celebrated semi-autobiography. To top it off, this film was shown at Cannes Film Festival in 1996!

The film begins in rural Greenville County, South Carolina, right after WWII, when women being unwed mothers were made social outcasts, as were their offspring. Allison & Houston both convey the struggles of one such child from her own perspective: Ruth Anne Boatwright (known as Bone), whose birth certificate was stamped in bold red ink by the local government "bastard." This film blatantly begs the question is any human being illegitimate?

Anney Boatwright is Bone’s mother & a diner waitress. The Boatwright men are underclassed brawlers "who drink hard & shoot up each other's trucks" for typical rural ‘good ole boy’ US southern sport. They also enjoy mistreating girls & women due to their own insecurities and social inferiority. Indeed, they're rednecks.

It’s after Anney marries the seemingly loving Daddy Glen, when his relationship with Bone starts becoming the film’s central problem. Enraged, Daddy Glen begins to physically abuse Bone on a regular basis, after Anney miscarries their son. When Anney learns her husband's been abusing Bone, she leaves him. But, her deep-seeded need for a man's love, even an abusive one's, is impetus enough for her to return to a relentlessly wooing Glen. Doing so sets up the inevitable scene for a heinous incident between Daddy Glen & Bone. As a result, a serious break forms between Anney & Bone. The question becomes, will their severed mother-daughter relationship ever heal?

Having lived in rural South Carolina & Georgia, I commend Allison's keen memory & literary acumen while revealing the dirty all-too-well-known truths about how the back-woods straight folks really live. Though the VHS is based upon a fictional novel, the film is filled with truths that US citizens would assuredly like to pretend don't exist. Not just in the underclassed & back-woods rural, straight, white America, either!~