Sex crazed!

Tracey Ullman, Chris Isaak and Selma Blair (fitted with watermelon-size prosthetic bazoongas) play hyper-horny suburbanites in "A Dirty Shame," John Waters' latest naughty, naughty offering.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Sep 24, 2004 | There's an HBO show, which virtually no one else I know has ever seen (or admitted to seeing), called "Real Sex," which gives viewers a glimpse into the lives of regular people as they pursue that peculiar pursuit of happiness known as sex: Typical segments might feature a company that makes eerily realistic (and very expensive) sex dolls, or a summer sex camp populated by perfectly nice people who save up their money and vacation time so they can gather in some national park once a year and mix it up with other sex-loving couples.

"Real Sex" isn't particularly sexy -- for one thing, these are "real" bodies we're talking about, of all ages, shapes and sizes. But "Real Sex" is an exceedingly cheerful show, not because I particularly want to watch a naked old codger in a cowboy hat sidling up to a chain-mail-clad dowager in the Ran-D-Ranch chow line, but because I find their lack of embarrassment wonderful. Groups of concerned parents tell us sex is everywhere in the media, which is true if you believe that buff midriffs in a music video necessarily equal sex. But "Real Sex" reminds us that the really interesting stuff still goes on behind closed doors. It's doing its part to keep sex dirty.

And you can say the same for John Waters' terrible and terrific "A Dirty Shame," in which Tracey Ullman, as frazzled small-town convenience-store clerk Sylvia Stickles, gets conked on the head and turns into a sex maniac. Like many, if not most, of Waters' movies, "A Dirty Shame" has no discernible sense of rhythm or pacing, features loads of hammy acting, and just doesn't know how to resolve itself. But with big Hollywood movies getting glossier and more mechanical, and indie movies increasingly mistaking drabness for seriousness, we need Waters' sub-B-movie aesthetic more now than ever.

Waters is generally characterized as an exploitation filmmaker, a gleeful button-pusher who'll do anything for shock value. But even though "A Dirty Shame" offers a bottomless rain barrel of euphemisms for cunnilingus ("sneezing in the cabbage"; "going below 14th Street") and features several instances of full-frontal nudity (male and female), Waters' outrageousness is no longer the most outrageous thing about him. In fact, his most perverse characteristic is his relentless innocence.

Waters may acknowledge the existence of Internet porn, but skin mags and stag reels are where his heart really lies. He doesn't want to bring sex into the open; he wants to make sure it continues to be filthy and infinitely exploitable, for future generations to enjoy. He's the Johnny Appleseed of smut. If I ran the country, I'd put his face on a cereal box.

The reality is that the people who run the country, or at least the MPAA ratings board, believe Waters is a danger to society rather than a credit to it, which is why they've swaddled "A Dirty Shame" in a protective NC-17 bunting. No matter: It just means that Waters has done a true patriotic turn by giving kids something to sneak into, which probably suits him fine.

Next Page: Waters' unintentional but fitting tribute to the recently deceased Russ Meyer

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