I was listening to my favorite interviewer, Ron Bennington today, and he was speaking with Sean Dunne, director of a new short film: American Juggalo. It’s impossible not to leave your preconceived notions of what a Juggalo is behind before stepping into this documentary, which is available to watch for free online at AmericanJuggalo.com. Featuring a non-narrative story structure, the documentary is just people talking about what it means to be a juggalo to them, at their gathering that’s held every year. For that reason, and because of how well it’s shot and edited, I believe it is a much watch film for anyone who’s a fan of the documentary format.
The biggest thing you’re going to walk away from when watching American Juggalo is that these people believe they’re a family so strongly, and you can see it in how they act. At the same time you’re going to see them acting very foolishly, making poor life choices, and in some cases not just for themselves. There’s a moment in the film when a young pregnant mother is explaining that it takes a village to raise a child, and this (the gathering) is the village she wants to raise her unborn child in. At the same time she’s smoking a cigarette.
Another scene is a group of three Juggalos (Well two juggalos and one Juggalette) hanging out by their camp site and doing whip-its (inhaling nitrous oxide). They’re talking about how they’ve barely known each other, but they feel like family. They also talk about how they’ll quit jobs to come out to the gathering every year if they can’t get time off. It’s during this discussion that one of them does a whip-it and almost passes out, and the other two keep on blathering on.
Juggalos may feel as though they have a sense of family, and the gathering is a place for them to come together, but it’s their behavior that is questionable. No matter how uplifting they may feel while being around each other, the film shows several people making bad life choices, and then being ignorant about it, encouraging each other to do more.
One man simply states “We’ve got alcohol and we’ve got explosives. Let me show you how great we are!” Tossing the explosive onto grass and watching it explode, the sound resonating through the entire field with a loud bang. This is the village a girl wants to raise her family in? The one where the neighbor is drinking cheap beer, doing drugs and tossing around explosives?
I understand that the Juggalo culture is filled with people who feel like they’re outcasts, and they bond, not over the music, but the idea of being outcasts. There are no shots in this film where people are talking about the music, of the stage, or even involving ICP themselves. This is about the fans and how they reinforce each other’s lives through a bond of ignorance… Ignorance is bliss, but I don’t see many of these people living past 40 as a result.
I should have stated this at the top, but let me say this… this isn’t a review of the film, American Juggalo. It’s impossible to review this film for me because I dislike the people in it, I feel sorry for them, and I want them to get some common sense… but the movie itself I feel is important. When there’s a group of people, 20,000 strong who feel the need to travel to middle america, camp out in a field for four days and be together, they deserve to have a voice, and director Sean Dunne has given them that voice, if only for a half hour.
Watch this movie and understand what these people are like.
