The Pope of Trash. The Prince of Puke. John Waters, the transgressive filmmaker behind Pink Flamingos, became an unlikely success in the 1970s with several low-budget, warped and filthy films that have earned cult status. But what happens when the man on the margins of moviemaking suddenly becomes respectable? Has John Waters lost his edge?
In Mr. Know-It-All, Waters (Role Models) reveals that there is no cause for alarm. Waters enjoyed mainstream success with Hairspray, which despite its PG rating "had the power to sneak into middle-class homes and espouse gay marriage and teenage race mixing without anybody noticing." This was followed by Cry-Baby with Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop and Joey Heatherton, which was "like a dinner party in a celebrity mental institution of my choice." By the mid-2000s, Waters was a household name, but reception of his movies had cooled and it became harder for independent movies to be made; the NC-17 rated A Dirty Shame was his last.
But fear not--John Waters is still delightfully profane and weird. In a wide-ranging essay on music, Waters reveals his love for "car-accident teen novelty records," a micro-genre if there ever was one. His roots as a Yippie ("angry left-wing hippies who were tired of giving peace a chance"), sexual exploits in the pre-AIDS era, fondness for drugs (including an LSD trip at the tender age of 70) and his musings on Brutalist architecture and a monkey-artist named Besty prove that John Waters is as irreverent as ever. --Frank Brasile, librarian