John Waters is one of my favorite people in this galaxy. It was from him that I first heard the term- Tea Bagging, & I am now furious that radical wingnuts have hijacked this perfectly lovely slang term for a sweet act of affection, & made it into something dirty & political?
My first John Waters film was Pink Flamingos in 1972, at a small revival house in Cambridge, Mass. I was so disgusted by this piece of trash that I couldn’t wait to come back for more. I have seen all of his films since then & I find them to be filthy & sweet, a combo that I really go for. My personal favorite is Pecker. The Husband has a soft spot for A Dirty Shame.
For more than 40 years, John Waters has gone from a Baltimore boy making cheap, underground movies to an international star & a maker of Hollywood comedies. But he is no snob & he is not a player. All of his films are shot on location in Baltimore with modest budgets. The star power of his films demonstrates his influence & clout.
John Waters writes all his own films, & his trademark stylistic elements of filth & debauchery are still a part of his more mainstream screenplays, made more palatable for the masses. In many of his films there is the mock sincerity & the forced innocence of late 1950's & early 1960's. Drugs, queers, abortion, & religion… nothing is sacred in his viewpoint. Waters: "Secretly I think that all my films are politically correct, though they appear not to be. That's because they're made with a sense of joy."
If the films were not enough, John Waters is also an accomplished writer & photographer. He has published 2 volumes of his journalism, 1 screenplay collection, & a great big book of pictures he took of his television. His artwork has been shown internationally in museums & galleries.
At 12 years old, John Waters subscribed to Variety, mastering the lexicon of show biz. He staged bizarre & hilarious puppet shows at children's' birthday parties. With an 8mm camera, Waters & his high school outcast friends formed a repertory company called the Dreamland Players, & they began filming the vilest filth Waters could imagine. He has said that his goal was to smash every middle-class value. His early works included Hag in a Black Leather Jacket & Eat Your Makeup, in which models are kidnapped &… & forced to eat their makeup.
John Waters was expelled from NYU for smoking marijuana. In the official letter of expulsion, Waters' parents were told that he needed extensive psychiatric therapy, but Waters made movies instead. In 1969, with $2,000 from his father, Waters made his first full length film- Mondo Trasho. In one memorable scene, his muse- Divine crawls through a pig sty wearing a gold lame dress, while pigs copulate on camera. It got Waters arrested for conspiracy to commit indecent exposure. His other early films include- Multiple Maniacs, in which Mink Stole gives "rosary jobs" to strangers in Catholic churches, & the scratch-and-sniff classic- Polyester.
In Pink Flamingos, in an effort to be the"filthiest person alive", Divine is asked to describe her political positions: "Kill everyone now. Condone first degree murder. Advocate cannibalism. Eat shit. Filth is my politics…filth is my life!" William S. Burroughs called Waters "the pope of trash". Hairspray, his 1988 rock n' roll comedy starring a fat Ricki Lake, was his first mainstream film, it became a successful Broadway musical in 2002, winning 8 Tony Awards& an enjoyable film version was released in 2007 starring John Travolta & Michele Pfeiffer.
Earlier this year he was granted a knighthood by HRH Elizabeth 2, so he is now Sir John Waters. He continues to reside in his beloved Baltimore, bust blocks from where he grew up.
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