Liam Kenney Core Post #2

 While reading White Trash: Race and Class in America, I found myself holding different interpretations of some of Gael Sweeny’s analysis of white trash, and wanted to offer a Gen-Z continuation of the concept and expansion on some of her ideas. Gael Sweeny makes a stark distinction between white trash and camp, specifically citing John Waters’ films as a better example of camp borrowing the name of white trash, than actually being white trash. I don’t think it's necessarily fair to say John Waters’ films aren’t white trash, they absolutely are camp, but I disagree with the notion that lack of self awareness is an absolute tenet in the imaginary rule book of white trash. I was reminded of Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, and I would love to throw it into the debate of white trash and camp, as Korine’s garish, often highly controversial art often comes off as both ironic and completely not self aware. Trash Humpers is a movie that Korine described as “essentially American,” which is an interesting modern day example of Sweeny’s analysis of the effect of the relationship between Elvis and Nixon, the merger and broader acceptance of white trash culture into the broader American canon. Trash Humpers is shot in Nashville, and aestheticizes numerous aspects of white trash culture, broken down cars, buildings, and a look at parts of America in a general state of disrepair. The striation of class is something Korine doesn’t shy away from, often playing a major role in his films. The class commentary contained in both Korine and Waters’ films are yet another reason why white trash shouldn’t necessarily be at odds with camp.

What I find interesting is that in the last few years, Gen-Z has been drawn specifically to the visual aesthetic of white trash. In the last two years, there has been a massive young, queer, and intersectional appropriation (purely in the sense of taking the look, not trying to insinuate that white trash can be culturally appropriated, I don’t think it can be) of many of the aspects of white trash culture. Sontag said it best, camp is “A sensibility that revels in artifice, stylization, theatricalization, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content,” but so much of white trash exists as a product of postmodern culture, even if it isn’t on purpose, so much of white trash is camp on it’s own, even without broader awareness of it’s “artifice.”

Take a walk around Echo Park or Highland Park, Bushwick or Williamsburg, or peek your head into a DJ set somewhere edgy and underground, and you’ll see people head to toe in Realtree camouflage, jean cutoffs work boots, and vintage nu-metal shirts. The look of specifically 90s white trash, as briefly mentioned by Sweeny, has become hugely visually impactful on the clothing styles of some of Gen-Z’s most hip members. The visual language of white trash has found a new set of fans, enamored by the decades old success of being visually against the grain, the camp element giving them the perfect ironic twist that’s made its way all the way up to the runways of Balenciaga and other high fashion brands. The irony of wearing white trash clothing is also what strips it of the underlying racism, a chance to remain self aware and re-define what it means to appear as white trash. 

Ethel Cain, a modern artist hugely popular in alternative circles, who is now finally breaking through into the mainstream, has crafted a modern take on the Southern Gothic aesthetic, with heavy influences from her upbringing in Florida. Ethel Cain, who talks about life in the south as a poor member of a white, religious, family, goes as far to use the term white trash in her lyrics. For Ethel Cain’s young Gen Z fans, especially those who aren’t as well versed in the language of the American south, her music offers an escape along the same lines as Elvis, a chance to sonically escape the dreary city escapes of industrial America. For Ethel Cain fans, her music romanticizes many elements of white trash, another aspect of the current rehabilitation of white trash in Gen-Z circles. For Gen-Z, their appropriation of the look of white trash is exactly what Sweeny describes with the escape offered by rock and roll, a chance to strip away class lines and exist as a member of a group with an attitude of general disdain for adherence to notions of taste and the idea of a “proper,” culture. There is a sort of unspoken solidarity between young artists in Los Angeles experiencing the same rejection by the elites and wealthy in the fields they wish they wish to join, and the appeal of white trash comes from the idea that nothing is too much, that a system exists outside of the strict rules enforced by modern culture. White trash has effectively been divorced from its history, and taken on new life as a facet of the alternative scenes in cities across the United States.