Few persons would consider the act of filming a dog pooping in the street so a fat trasvesti can eat the shit a work of art. But if this repulsive scene is done my cult director John Waters then thousands and thousands of fans would praise it and admire it as another geniality from the master of grotesque.
John Waters is a passionate censorship challenging movie maker from Baltimore, USA. You may regard his style as extremely disgusting, because it really is, but you can't deny that he can offer more than vulgarities and can cause a feeling in his audience thanks to his particular humor. Let's see some of his most important works that I've seen:
PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) One of the most vomitive films I've ever seen. Divine (a fat transvestite, muse of Waters) lives with her mother who's always in a baby cage eating eggs. For some strange reason they try to compete against the neighbours in becoming the filthiest person in the world. The neighbours kidnap young women to artificially inseminate her (with a semen shot) and sell the babies to lesbian couples. At the end, Divine executes them, eats dog shit and wins the contest.
POLYESTER (1981)I never saw this one but I remember very well its publicity in Mexican television when it arrived in 1988 or 1989: "First ever movie filmed in smell o vision". At the beggining of the movie the audience receives a scratch and sniff card with ten squares numbered 1 to 10. When you see No. 1 on the screen you scratch that square and smell it. The possible odors were flowers, grass, pizza, glue and shit. In 2004 Waters happily remembered the joy he felt when people paid to smell shit.
HAIRSPRAY (1988)Colorful musical set in the 60s famous for being Waters' first movie not rated NC17 or XXX. A fatty girl (Ricki Lake) hopes she can appear on a tv dancing show but when her dream comes true she realizes the way they used to segregate the negros and ends up in jail for protesting. Divine plays the role of her ironing mother.
CRYBABY (1990)Another musical for almost all the family that is parody of Grease and Elvis Presley movies. The film stars a young lad called Johnny Depp, Ricki Lake (Hairspray) and rock superstar Iggy Pop.
SERIAL MOM (1994) Kathleen Turner plays a traditional housewife with the twist that if someone says something about her children she kills them. At the end she kills so many people that the police catches her but manages to get a "not guilty" veredict in her trial thanks to her "techniques". In my opinion this is Waters' most fun and "normal" movie of his filmography.
A DIRTY SHAME (2004) Johnny Knoxville (Jackass) is a sex addict that using hits to the head turns a whole Baltimore suburb (where almost all of Waters' films occur) in his disciples. The first victim is a conservative lady (Tracey Ullman, from the show where the Simpsons first appeared) that previously had tied her exhibitionist daughter (Selma Blair) for being a sex addict too (and having giant tits). In one of the best scenes, David Hasselhoff poops from a flying plane and the shit lands of someone head making him a sex addict too. At the end, Knoxville turns into a giant penis and spits semen at everyone.
HAIRSPRAY (2007) Remake of the original 1988 musical. Waters isn't the director but he has a cameo appeareance as a flahser. The role that Divine played in the original film is now done by John Travolta, who I personally don't like him very much for being a scientologist, but he looks funny anyway. This movies feautures great performances from Michelle Pfieffer, Christopher Walker, Queen Latifah, Zac Efron (from High School Musical), James Marsden (X-Men) and the first timer Niki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad.
Moments later, they exploded.
And now, the final song:
Waters and Homer Simpson
John Waters has become a very important human rights defender specially against racism and homophobia. In 1997 he appeared in an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is homophobic and thinks Bart is gay. At the end he stops hating fags when Waters saves his life from a pack of reindeers.
