Watching “Gummo” (1997) in 2021: A Violent Exploration of Class in Contemporary America

Shaky handheld clips of dilapidated homes, power lines and families flip through the screen as a child sings an expletive-filled nursery rhyme. A child starts to mumble: “Xenia, Ohio. A few years ago, a tornado hit this place. It killed the people left and right … Houses were split open … People’s legs and neck bones were sticking out … I saw a girl fly through the sky, and I looked up her skirt.” The narrator jumps between sounding like a child and like he’s spitting prose. The seemingly arbi