By WILLIAM J. WRIGHT
Respectability, let alone a reputation as an iconic filmmaker, was likely the last thing on 18-year-old John Samuel Waters‘ mind when he scaled the roof of his parents’ suburban Baltimore home in 1964 to film Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, his first short, shot on 8mm for the princely sum of $30 (give or take – Waters says he and his ragtag crew stole the filmstock). Nevertheless, the last two years have seen two of his films, Pink Flamingos and Hairspray enshrined in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, an honor reserved for movies with “cultural, historic or aesthetic” importance. Despite accolades that include Grammy nominations for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio versions of his books Carsick and Mr. Know-It-All and being named an officer in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, it would be a mistake to think that time has mellowed John Waters. The 77-year-old director is very much the same character who cajoled Divine to gobble down dogshit for the sake of cinema in 1972.
RUE MORGUE learned this firsthand when we sat down with Waters to talk about the John Waters Filthy Film Festival, a three-night celebration of his work, coming to the historic Mahoning Drive-In Theater in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Running from September 29 through October 1, with America’s filth elder himself taking part in the festivities on nights one and two, the festival collects six of Waters’ greatest films presented in glorious 35mm. As a dedicated devotee of schlock and exploitation cinema, Waters’ upcoming appearance at the Mahoning Drive-In is something of a spiritual homecoming.
“I grew up in a drive-in,” Waters explains. “I got half my film education at a drive-in. I had sex in a drive-in for the first time! So really, drive-ins, to this day, are important to me, but I’m a little sad now because they screen the most commercial movies now instead of the least like when I was young. Barbie is playing in them now, or they have flea markets on weekends or classic car shows.
“POLYESTER’s” fancy drive-in
I want them to have horror films or a Dracula night and William Castle-style gimmicks. Just have all the crazy stuff that drive-ins used to do. Give out barf bags and all that stuff. Today, they police drive-ins. You can’t bring in outside food; You can’t drink; You can’t have sex! So it’s a different world. There may be some that are still like that that I don’t know [about], like real ones. But what would they show? What’s an exploitation film today? The last one was Cocaine Bear. I guess that would be the perfect one if there was a drive-in left.”
Surprisingly, Waters doesn’t count losing his virginity as his peak drive-in movie experience. As the old saying goes, it’s not a party until the cops show up, and naturally, it wouldn’t be a great John Waters story without a little law-enforcement intervention. “I got arrested in [a drive-in] for underage drinking, and they took us all away, and it was in my parents’ station wagon,” Waters recalls. “I had to go back the next day, and there were bottles of Ripple wine all around and left there.” However, that was the least of the indignities teenage John Waters faced in that ignoble movie-going incident. “They said in court, in front of my father, who was horrified, they said one of the girls was seen urinating outside the car. Which was true, but oh, God, get over it!”
Although things aren’t likely to get that wild (or at least, that illegal) during the Filthy Film Festival, Waters is nonetheless excited that the Mahoning is keeping a little of the old-school drive-in spirit alive. “I think it’s absolutely amazing, the idea of a destination drive-in for film fanatics. I don’t know another one in the whole country that can live up to that.”
“You stand convicted of assholism!” Divine takes aim in “PINK FLAMINGOS”
The Mahoning Drive-In Theater will present the John Waters Filthy Film Festival in association with Exhumed Films, a film organization dedicated to classic cult and horror cinema. Waters worked previously with Exhumed Films when he hosted a Philadelphia screening of Pink Flamingos a few years back. Female Trouble, A Dirty Shame, Pecker, Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living and Hairspray will be shown along with a surprise movie curated by John Waters to be screened as the third feature on Friday, September 29. Although the festival offers a wide swath of Waters’ output from his underground days to his later more commercial work, some of his more popular films and deeper cuts are notably missing. However, there’s always next time. “I sort of went with what they wanted … because they have access to a lot of 35mm prints,” Waters explains. “I don’t know which ones they have and which ones are the best ones.”
John Waters thanks you for not smoking.
Unfortunately, one film that will likely never feature in a John Waters film festival is 1969’s Mondo Trasho. “Mondo Trasho is not in distribution because of music rights issues and hasn’t been for 30 years, and it never will be. It is being shown, parts and clips from it and stuff, at my Academy Award museum show that is happening in the fall in Los Angeles, which is kind of amazing. The Academy Awards Museum has given me a whole show about all my films. But it’s not showing everything. It’s more of like stuff that was in it – costumes and all that – so I’m very excited about that.”
With Visconti on one shoulder and William Castle on the other, John Waters, with his patented fusion of bad taste and fine art, began making inroads into the “mainstream” with 1981’s Polyester. However, his next film, 1988’s Hairspray, which closes the John Waters Filthy Film Festival on Sunday, October 1, would become a comparatively family-friendly pop culture phenomenon, inspiring a Broadway musical that was itself adapted as a film. Despite its feel-good gloss, the tale of pleasantly plump Tracy Turnblad’s dance war on racism in 1960s Baltimore is the film that Waters feels is his most subversive.
Divine and Ricki Lake in “HAIRSPRAY”
“Hairspray was the most devious film I ever made because it’s never been attacked,” says Waters. “They do Hairspray the musical in grade schools in the South, and nobody attacks it because it’s too confusing to them because, as a theater piece, the fact that Edna’s a man is a secret between the stage actors and the audience. Tracy Turnblad does not think her mother is trans. They don’t know how to attack it. Even racists are so stupid, they like it! They don’t even realize that it’s against them! To me, it’s the only devious film I made because it snuck in.”
On the heels of Hairspray‘s success, Hollywood came calling. “After Hairspray, every studio wanted to make Cry Baby – the only time that ever happened,” Waters says. “I wrote all about it in my book Mr. Know-It-All.” For the first time, director-for-hire gigs were also on the table, but the fiercely creative Waters wanted no part of that. “All my agents always tried to get me to read other people’s scripts … I would never make a movie I didn’t write, so I never read them.”
But where does John Waters see his baby boomer heroine in 2023? Did Tracy Turnblad hold on to her progressive ideals? “That’s a good one. There were four sequels that I didn’t get to direct,” Waters says. “Where would Tracy Turnblad be today in real life? Tracy would be big and proud. And maybe she’d be a social worker. And she would help save the Baltimore School System. Maybe that’s what she would be doing.”
Tracy triumphant – Ricki Lake in “HAIRSPRAY”
The mainstream may have finally come around to recognizing John Waters and his art, but that admiration is far from mutual. Still content to live by his own rules and distinct tastes, the Sultan of Sleaze has little use for modern popular culture, taking a firm ignore-it-and-maybe-it-will go away stance, especially when it comes to current movie trends. “I never see them! I’ve never heard of the comic books. I don’t know what the video games are. When they say, ‘The number one film in America…,’ [I’m thinking] I’ve never even heard of that movie.”
“There’s no movie marketing anymore,” Waters laments. “And I miss it because I don’t know which films to avoid now. I went to see Oppenheimer, which I really liked, but in the movie, we saw a half-hour of trailers, and they all looked like they were the exact same movie. And they all told you the whole movie … It was like, ‘Warning: Don’t see this!’ That’s what it felt like. When I was young, trailers made you feel like, ‘Oh, I gotta see this!’ These just made me feel like, ‘Oh, thank God I saw that so I know not to go!’ Even with horror! I saw a trailer for some new Exorcist rip-off. And it was really a rip-off. I remember Abby, the Black rip-off of The Exorcist that I loved. [Universal] sued [the filmmakers] and won, and then, they had to stop the movie … [This new one] is Abby meets The Exorcist because there was a Black girl and a white girl who get possessed together. And so it just seems stunningly unoriginal. And I like sequels, sometimes, especially the worst ones, so maybe it’s good. I don’t know.”
“Tell your mother I hate you!” Mink Stole’s domestic meltdown in “DESPERATE LIVING”
Looking to the future of filmmaking and the integration of technology, Waters actually has high hopes for A.I., but don’t mistake his enthusiasm as advocacy for replacing actors. The Pope of Trash has a specific genre in mind. “I think [A.I.] would be great for porn. Then, you can just imagine your favorite movie star having sex with you, and then watch it. That sounds perfect to me!”
Although the current WGA and SAG strikes may have potentially postponed his return to filmmaking (his first novel, Liarmouth, was optioned last year with Waters attached to direct), 2023 has nonetheless been a typically busy year for Waters. The John Waters Filthy Film Festival is just one of many events Waters’ fans can look forward to. “I’m writing my Christmas show, my spoken-word show that I do. You know, my comedy show that I do year-round that has almost nothing to do with my movies,” says Waters. “I just hosted the big punk rock festival I do every year in Oakland. I have the John Waters camp, the John Waters Easter, my Christmas tour … I just was the keynote speaker for a Mensa conference … That was a good one! I got thrown out of every school I went to!”
As John Waters heads into his eighth decade, his commitment to his (twisted) ethos is unwavering. Although many of his generation abandoned their ideals (according to Waters, the new generation has “too many ideals”), Baltimore’s favorite son was never in step with the boomers anyway, and he’s not about to fall in line now. Still effortlessly offbeat and unashamedly odd, the director has some filthy words of wisdom for aspiring weirdos in a world that’s become increasingly hostile to outsiders, especially those wishing to follow in his filmmaking footsteps. “Well, now you have to be a weirdo without trying too hard,” Waters says. “When you try too hard to be a weirdo, it’s ineffective. You have to be effortless about it. And that just means that you’re original, and you’re marching to your own drummer, and you don’t care if anybody else marches to it. But at the same time, you think of a way to make people that directed the movie right before you that was cool nervous.”
See the legendary John Waters live and in person at the John Waters Filthy Film Festival, coming to the historic Mahoning Drive-In Theater on September 28 and 30. For a complete rundown of events, click here.
