GLR May-June 2024

ESSAY

John Waters Went There P ETER M UISE

I N THE SUMMER OF 1981, my father took me and my brother to see a double feature of two John Waters movies: Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos . I was fourteen, and my brother was three years older. My family had recently seen Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert review Pink Flamingos on their weekly TV show, and when my father learned that two Waters films were playing at the Nickelodeon Theater in Boston, he decided to take me and my brother to see them. My mother was not a fan of art films and declined to join us, perhaps wisely. Female Trouble (1974) was shown first, and this campy tale of juvenile delinquent Dawn Davenport’s journey from teenage runaway to hideously disfigured and murderous performance artist appealed to my budding (but still closeted) gay sensibili ties. As a fourteen-year-old gay boy, I was thrilled to see the ti tanic and terrifying drag queen Divine play a Catholic school

girl, and the eccentric Baltimore actress Edith Massey strut around in a lace-up leather catsuit and Frederick’s of Hollywood heels. But despite its gory ending and freaky sex scenes, Fe male Trouble still didn’t quite prepare me for Pink Flamingos (1972), the second film that day. Technically a comedy, Pink Flamingos is also an onslaught of shocking imagery. Two peo ple kill a live chicken on-screen by crushing it between their bodies during sex. A creepy manservant masturbates into his hand, and then uses a syringe to impregnate women imprisoned in a pit with his semen. The protagonist, played by Divine, fel lates her adult son as he moans “Oh, Mama, I should have known you’d be better than anyone.” And, most famously, after tarring and feathering her enemies and executing them with a gun, Divine eats actual dog excrement, rolling it around on her tongue like a delicious treat. All of these atrocities were per formed by nonprofessional actors in cheap, garish costumes, delivering their lines in loud, declamatory style. I suppose some parents would have grabbed their kids and walked out, but my father didn’t. He had driven us all the way into the city and paid for our tickets. No cinematic atrocities could outweigh those sunk costs. We sat through both movies, back to back, but there was little conversation in the car ride home. I think we were all in shock at what we had seen. I’m grateful that my father took us to see the double feature, both for the experience and for the cultural capital it gave me as a high school freshman. Certainly, I was the first of my friends to see those films. Despite my appreciation, though, I would have laughed if anyone told me John Waters would someday receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which he did in September 2023. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A. is also hosting “John Waters: Pope of Trash,” a year-long exhibit honoring Waters and his films. The Museum is affili ated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the same people who bring us the Oscars every year. Along with the exhibit, the Museum has issued a handsome hardcover cat alogue, also titled John Waters: Pope of Trash , which has essays from scholar B. Ruby Rich (the current editor of FilmQuar terly ) and David Simon (the award-winning producer of The Wire ), among others. The book is large, full of beautiful photos, and suitable for displaying on a coffee table. It is downright tasteful. The Hollywood star, the museum exhibit, and the book are huge honors for John Waters. It’s been a long, strange trip to mainstream acceptance for Waters, an auteur who specializes in what he calls “art-exploitation” films and who was dubbed the “Pope of Trash” by William S. Burroughs in 1986. Waters was born in 1946, in Baltimore, and grew up in that city’s suburbs. The city has remained central to his work and his life. Unlike many queer people who leave their hometown to find freedom, Waters has kept his Baltimore roots and filmed all of his movies

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