How's this for a center spread?
John Waters knows what it means to be a freak. The famed Baltimore-based director has spent his decades-long career catapulting other ostracized freaks into stardom — From his neighborhood drag queen-turned-actress, Divine, to groveling artists like the author of Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, Cookie Mueller. Waters’ cult classics are a paradise for fans of American trash.
Waters lines his films with this sort of obtusely out-of-place glamour that is offset by grotesque violence and body horror. Drama, dirt, degradation, and depravity are key elements of his subversive movies, but these themes never seem to get in the way of a gaudy ensemble.
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Multiple Maniacs is an early Waters film that tells of radicalization and the coming of a revolution through the perspective of a murderous circus act. Cookie Mueller wrote that at the time they filmed Multiple Maniacs, “...everybody wanted to act in John’s films, all the Maryland Art Institute students, all the druggies, even the redneck honkies, and John put them to work [...] John was allowing a lot of people to fulfill these urges. He always had new featured people, new discoveries in each film”.
Think of this film as a confession; Waters put together his own circus of people who want to be known for their off-beat talents in his movies. In Multiple Maniacs, Lady Divine and her entourage star in "The Cavalcade of Perversion,” a traveling freak show for exhibitions of the unsavory. Subverting the idea of the ‘60s hippie movement, Waters aimed to be provocative and political: “Violence was this generation’s sacrilege, so I wanted to make a film that would glorify carnage and mayhem for laughs.” One way that the film achieves this is through religious imagery and its accompanying fashions like rosaries and robes, desecrating biblical scenes with sexual reenactments that you’ll have to watch to understand.
Pink Flamingos (1972)
In a competition for the title of “Filthiest People Alive,” two Baltimore families battle one another with scenes of bestiality, kidnapping, and forced impregnation. Despite the film’s squeamish depravity, its characters assert their unique weirdness through their clothing choices. Costume designer Van Smith (who passed away in 2006) is credited not just with having created the infamous looks of John Waters’ movies, but for externalizing the director’s desire for what he deemed “inner rot.” Smith not only brought the Ursula-inspired red dress that has become synonymous with Pink Flamingos to life but later dirtied up Divine’s look when the descent into anarchy bleeds all over her elegant white gown (at the expense of some chickens).
Female Trouble (1974)
When Dawn Davenport doesn’t wake up to a shiny new pair of Cha Cha heels on Christmas morning, crime ensues. Vain and immature, the high school student sets out on a murderous hitchhike. The film follows the idea of beauty on the inside, but interpreted literally; Dawn consumes makeup products to become more beautiful. If there’s one thing that John Waters does right, it’s encroaching real struggles into the realm of surrealism.
Excess becomes exorcized and the character’s vapid soul becomes physically undeniable; the courtroom scene shows Dawn with a burned face and mohawk, but she shows up with her signature blue eyeshadow look to match her blue mini dress. The worst crime of all? "She forced me at gunpoint into her crummy little house, made me wear a feathered dress, locked me in a birdcage, and made me exhibit myself in front of her!”
Desperate Living (1977)
Baltimore native Mink Stole stars as Peggy Gravel in the 1977 black comedy Desperate Living. Peggy, a neurotic housewife, murders her husband with the help of her maid Grizelda, and the two are exiled to a town called Mortville that exists on the fringes of society. Upon its release, The New York Times called the film a “pointlessly ugly movie” — and they meant this as a compliment. Desperate Living is a hedonistic fairytale coupled with commentary on what it feels like to resent the confines you’ve found yourself in, whether that’s environmental or corporeal. Neuroses, body dysmorphia, sexuality, and gender identity comprise the subtle substance of the film amidst the drug and infection-riddled landscape of Mortville. Tyrannical leader Queen Carlotta reigns in unbridled extravagance. Fuchsia brocade, mountains of tulle, oversized bows, and the ever-flattering exposed ankle and kitten heel combo prop the fascist ruler up high on her throne to exert chaos upon her people.
Polyester (1981)
Waters once said of his leading lady: “... beauty is looks that you can never forget, and I’ve walked down the street with Divine and seen car accidents happen.” Not exactly a kitschy tale of a perfect 1980s housewife, but perhaps a fable on the fruitless pursuit of perfection; floral pantsuits, roller updos, and high-waisted latex are the mark of a dysfunctional woman in a John Waters film. Macramé, in all its flower child glory, is used as a weapon of strangulation. Lu-Lu Fishpaw, who used the knotted knitting pattern to heal her mind after a miscarriage and become “gentler [now] and more creative,” loses control over her deadly desires: “I never wanted to use macramé to kill!”
Hairspray (1988)
Before the 2007 musical starring Nikki Blonsky and Zac Efron that we all know and love, there was John Waters’ interpretation of the 1962 dance scene in Baltimore. Although a more subdued offering from the infamously profane director, Hairspray (1988) still shocked its more mainstream audience with its earnest confrontation of race and size. This was also the first time that many viewers would experience the on-screen grace of Divine, who played Edna Turnblad, with her bouffant and bathrobe. The fashion of the ‘60s-inspired dance flick pays homage to traditional retro cocktail dresses and pop art patterns, but with classic Waters sartorial touches — like the director’s cameo as a psychiatrist who attempts to put Penny Lou Pingleton in a straightjacket for being in an interracial relationship with Elijah “Seaweed” Kelley. 🌀
Erica DeMatos is a writer and editor based in Boston who finds herself interested in the art of listening more than that of speaking. She searches for meaning in everything and is most interested in memoirs, diary entries, words written in Sharpie on bathroom stalls, and other shared secrets that were once held close to the heart. When she is not writing or reading you can find her at the beach, no matter the weather.