Their name is the Whittaker, they live in a remote town in the state of West Virginia, in the United States, and their family tree is enough to make any geneticist pale. Reputedly “the most inbred family in the United States”, it was revealed to the world by American photographer and filmmaker Mark Laita, in 2020, in a documentary broadcast on YouTube. Touching, even “pure”, for some, beasts of fairground for others, the Whittakers have an extraordinary story.
If the history of the Whittakers dates back to the 18th century, the popularity of this American family is quite recent. In 2004, photographer Mark Laita was traveling the country looking for people to photograph for a photo book project. “Faces”, from the astronaut to the ballerina, including the politician and the drug addict, “everything you can imagine living in the United States”, he explained in a podcast in 2022. It was a police officer, met in a truck stop in West Virginia, who took the photographer to the Whittaker home. “It was like that scene in the movie Deliverancea road that turns into a country road then a dirt road to lead to a caravan on one side and a small cabin on the other,” he remembers.
Consanguinity that dates back to the 19th century
The first contact will explain the rest: “There were these people walking, their eyes going in all directions, barking at us. The only one who looked us in the eye said nonsense, shouted and ran away with his pants hanging down to his ankles to kick a trash can,” Mark Laita is still surprised. In addition to the photos, he decided to document the life of this family on video and publish it in the form of a series on his YouTube channel. The first video, filmed in 2020, has more than 40 million views.
We discover Betty-Ann, Lorene, Ray and Timmy, brothers and sisters marked by blatant consanguinity. Lorene does not speak, nor does her son Timmy, born from rape. Although he seems to understand English, Ray only expresses himself by barking. Only Betty-Ann, matriarch of the family, speaks almost normally. An audience success which can be explained by “the somewhat sadistic and voyeuristic pleasure that we experience in front of this type of content”, explains Virginie Spies, semiologist and media analyst at the University of Avignon.
The roots of this supposed consanguinity, nevertheless supported by the research of several genealogists, dates back to the 19th century, when two sisters, Ada and Macie, married John and James, two sons of their aunt (wife Whittaker), who became their mother-in-law. Ada and John had 9 children, including Gracie. Henry, John’s twin brother, and his wife had 6 children, including John-Emory. It really came to life when John Emory and Gracie, first cousins, married and had 15 children, including Lorene, Ray and Betty.
The prize pool controversy
Many are dead, some have left to make a life for themselves but the bulk of the “gang” lives in Odd, in rotten cabins, a dilapidated caravan and in extreme poverty but “protected” by their neighbors who hunt for voyeurs. For his part, if he admits to having exploited the image of the Whittaker, Mark Laita was still touched by these characters, “strange but deeply human”. He also launched, in 2022 And 2023, two online prize pools to help the Whittakers repair their house and buy another one. “It’s reminiscent of circuses in the 1920s where monsters were exhibited. There was mockery, disgust but also benevolence,” believes the researcher. “Seeing this is fascinating and above all reassuring in view of our own situation,” she adds.
Prize pools which raised more than $120,000 and of which Mark Laita was accused by Tyler Oliveira, a YouTuber, for taking advantage. The latter had gone to visit the Whittakers and was surprised to see their living conditions still so precarious despite the money raised for them. The photographer had to explain in a video, posted a month ago. “We were getting close to the goal of being able to buy the house, except that Betty-Ann regularly called me and asked me for money to buy a car, food and other things,” assures me. he.
“I couldn’t refuse them, it was their money, so I gave it to them. 5,000 here, 14,000 there. Today, there is nothing left,” laments Mark Laita. A dried-up windfall that left Betty wanting more. Larry’s daughter, one of 15 siblings, went as far as claim that his father was dead to extort money from the photographer for the funeral.
In the midst of this tumult, detached or obsessed by a reality that goes beyond them, the Whittakers are now stars in spite of themselves. And if today society no longer tolerates exhibitions of freaks in public places, she enjoys the spectacle on the networks with impunity. A paradox “very symptomatic of our society”, recognizes Virginie Spies.