Thursday, Aug 21, 2008
It's been a long, nauseating haul, but the director of "Pink Flamingos" and the new "Cecil B. DeMented" has made it as an American icon.
Aug 8, 2000 | "The Pope of Trash," "the Prince of Puke," "the P.T. Barnum of Scatology," "the Sultan of Sleaze," "the Baron of Bad Taste." These are the words that have been used to describe John Waters, and for him, this has been the language of love (particularly coming from such luminaries as William Burroughs, who conferred upon him the pontiff remark). "I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value," Waters has said, and even if in his last few films, socially redeeming values have been working their way into the mangy proceedings, at the very least there is -- and always has been -- Waters' wickedly ironic and deeply queer sensibility, firmly in place.
He is nearly as famous for his persona as for the films he's directed. With his pencil-thin mustache and his clean-cut look of suit and skinny tie, like some demented '50s high school guidance counselor, he's appeared frequently on TV talk shows, in movies and as a guest voice on "The Simpsons." But mostly, of course, there are the movies. Waters' place in movie history is such that you only need to hear his name to see the picture reeling in your head. You might imagine bodily fluids (both animal and human), rats, roaches and "actors" with bad skin and missing teeth. You might look back fondly on a 350-pound transvestite sensation named Divine. You might also think of deliciously ludicrous dialogue:
Cecil B. Demented
Or you might think of your college days; at least I do. Generation after generation of us has delighted in being grossed out by the ultimate gross-out flick, the "Citizen Kane" of crap, "Pink Flamingos." I saw it once freshman year, and feel no need to see it again. For more than a few of us, it's part of the nostalgia package of our lives -- the quintessential midnight show, alongside "Dawn of the Dead," and we'll always remember Waters fondly for providing us, the young and defiantly unshockable, with the consummate gag memory: Divine rolling dog doo around in her mouth, and gagging herself. You wanna talk neo-realism, Roberto Rossellini? You can keep your exploration of the division of mind and spirit, Ingmar Bergman! Just give us Divine lifting her dress and shoving a steak down her underwear!
Waters has pursued a vision as singular as any American filmmaker. He has revitalized some of our big-time Hollywood stars (Kathleen Turner, Melanie Griffith), reintroduced us to the kitsch glory of others (Tab Hunter, Joe Delassandro, Joey Heatherton) and shown us a thing or two about some of the others we snidely thought we knew all about (Pia Zadora, Sonny Bono, former teen porn queen Traci Lords), at the same time faithfully maintaining, into a third decade, his "repertory" of actors, a regular Royal Shakespeare Company of Raunch called the Dreamlanders. Though untimely death has caught up with many of the greats in his magnificent motley stable of thespians, we would be much poorer without Divine emblazoned in our collective pop-culture memory, alongside Edith ("Edie the Egg Lady") Massey, David Lochary, Cookie Mueller and those still going strong -- Mink Stole and Mary Vivian Pearce.
Though it's highly unlikely he will ever be honored at the Kennedy Center alongside, say, Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola, Waters will always be loved as our most sublime schlockmeister. He is as American as John Ford and as tough-minded as Sam Peckinpah. His movies are far, far cries from cinematic works of art, but the best of them have as much kick as a Rogers and Astaire double feature. It's been a long, nauseating haul, but Waters, in true pioneer spirit, has made it as an American icon.
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