The title character in the 20th Annual Big Muddy Film Festival guest artist Jennifer Reeder’s ongoing series The Adventures of White Trash Girl may carry toxic bodily fluids in her system. But as long as you’re not among the upper crust of corporate America, you’ll escape her wrath.

Generally, White Trash Girl fights against injustices to marginalized people specifically poor people, Reeder, who is also one of the three Big Muddy judges, said. She’s sort of against anyone who takes advantage of non-advantaged people.

Reeder’s series, which will be screened from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight in the Student Center Auditorium, chronicles the (mis)adventures of White Trash Girl as she romps through each episode exploring issues of race, class, gender and sexuality.

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Though this modern-day super hero can maim or kill with her bodily fluids if angered, Reeder insists White Trash Girl is still a hero with whom people can relate.

She’s a good old working class-woman. She waits tables by day and is a super hero by night, she said. I like to describe her as a Robin Hood with big, blond hair and high-heeled boots. She’s a real people hero.

But as Spiderman combs New York City streets looking for muggers and the Hobgoblin, White Trash Girl acts as more of a magnet for social problems in need of her super power assistance.

Problems come to her, Reeder said. Her community is all working-class people, so she offers her help to anyone whose bosses are skimming paychecks, people who are hurt and can’t get medical care and single mothers.

Reeder came up with the idea of White Trash Girl when she was a graduate student at Ohio State University in 1995. She then began making independent tapes of the super hero, and since the incarnation of White Trash Girl, who happens to be the product of a 14-year-old girl and her funny uncle, the films have been eliciting rigid snickers and hushed tones from people finding the topics uncomfortable to speak about.

Even though the issues are being discussed and presented in a fictionalized manner, Reeder finds it curious that people who see the films have such a hard time talking about uncomfortable subjects.

We all know there is rape and incest in some families, and there are certain uncles we should stay away from. But nobody really talks about it or uncovers it, Reeder said. It’s not that we need to sit down and have an encounter group to talk about it or anything like that. It’s just interesting to me when I hear sort of a rolling nervous laughter welling up out of the audience and see people squirming in their seats as I screen the tapes.

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A large part of White Trash Girl’s ability to cook up a little uneasiness in some members of the audience is her overt sexuality. Some critics have been bothered by White Trash Girl being such a sexy, violent character.

Although the popular television show Xena:Warrior Princess maintains a sexy, smart and violent image, Reeder said she may be receiving such fixed criticism because White Trash Girl’s combination of erotic sexuality and clever intelligence is too taboo for independent film.

Maybe it’s just in art and academic circles that sexy and smart don’t go together, and I think they do go together and they are White Trash Girl, she said. I think sex represents something that is somehow subversive. No matter how much sex there is on prime-time TV or in the mainstream cinema, there is still a way that aspects of erotica or more so straight-out pornography have a way of subverting the status quo.

Sex is dealt with in a variety of ways in The Adventures of White Trash Girl, but Reeder handles sex in a way that does not put erotic acts on display.

In visual terms, there’s no real representation of sex in the tapes, Reeder said. Things are described or alluded to which makes it more explicit.

There are people that say it goes too far and then there’s those that say it doesn’t go far enough. I feel like people get it whether it goes too far or not far enough.

Some people feel that Reeder has gone overboard with White Trash Girl. Reeder has received malicious feedback twice from people crusading against White Trash Girl.

Reeder said she does not understand why people get so upset over an independent film that takes on social issues in a manner that does not evangelize what she thinks is right.

I’m just trying to make people think a little bit, but I’m not about fire and brimstone, she said. I’m just a nice midwestern girl.

FACTOID:Reeder will speak during the showcase about her series. Admission to the showcase is free.

Big Muddy schedule changes:The Films About Sexuality showcase Thursday will begin at 7:30 p.m. and will be screened in the Furr Auditorium in Pulliam Hall.

In the Company of Men will be shown Friday at 7 p.m. before the 9:30 p.m. screening of Pillow Book in the Student Center Auditorium.

In the Company of Men will also be shown in place of the two Pillow Book screenings Saturday at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in the Student Center Auditorium.