Red, White and Wasted

Mudding is not only a sport in which people in trucks drive around swamps and quagmires. For many rednecks (that’s how they proudly call themselves) from Florida it’s a lifestyle, an opportunity to celebrate their worldview, their attachment to land, family and recently, to president Trump. “Mud is like a drug to me. Better than doing drugs,” says Matthew Burns, mudding legend and a protagonist of Red, White & Wasted. The filmmakers are more interested in Matthew’s life, and the life of his two daughters, than in peeking at mudding competitions. By watching the everyday life of Burns family, Jones I Schwartz try to understand phenomenon of the American South—a region which still resents the Northeast, which still cultivates Confederate traditions, a region that does not hide its racism and xenophobia, but also a region that was put to test by the economic crisis and exploitative business of big corporations. It’s a must-see documentary, especially if you read J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy or Matthew Desmond’s Evicted.