Bastard Out of Carolina (DVD, 2000)

In 1993, lesbian feminist poet turned novelist, Dorothy Allison gave to us a heart wrenching novel, "Bastard Out of Carolina." 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.

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

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

It’s after Anney marries the seemingly loving Daddy Glen, when his relationship with Bone starts becoming the story’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 has been abusing Bone, she leaves him. But 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 thje inevitable scene for a heinous incident between Daddy Glen and Bone. As a result, a serious break forms between Anney and Bone. The question becomes, will their severed mother-daughter relationship heal?

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