Pop! Quiz: What is birthday boy John Waters' single greatest contribution to the universe?

I still do the Cha-Cha heels bit every Christmas with whomever I'm spending it with. It never get old (to me).

A few other quotes I've tried to use in casual conversation ...

The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.

Can't you just sit here and look out into the air? Isn't that enough? Do you always have to badger me for attention?

You dialed the wrong number!! Sorry? What good is that? How can you ever repay the 30 seconds you have stolen from my life! I hate you, your husband, your children and your relatives!

I've DONE everything a mother can do: I've locked her in her room, I've beat her with the car aerial. Nothing changes her.

At a time when the movie code was being challenged he was at the forefront. He pushed the limits of obscenity to the point that the moral guard eventually broke. This was especially true in Maryland, one of the last states to end its own special movie review board.  In addition, he kept the uniqueness that is Baltimore on the cultural landscape (for good or bad) and never forgets to celebrate the city he came from. He also never flinches at identifying himself as gay, even before it was acceptable to at least be out. I am a personal witness to this sometimes when he stands in line behind me at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore, MD for popcorn like a regular joe. Love him or hate him, Waters is a cultural icon.

"Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat Shit! Filth are my politics, filth is my life!"

LOVE John Waters!

for the great Serial Mom - I love that movie!

Misty: He killed people, mom. 
Beverly:  We all have our bad days.

I think one of his greatest contributions was the invention of Odorama for Polyester (that and Serial Mom are my two favorite of his movies).  How many directors could get audiences to pay to smell shit?  How many directors have had characters rape themselves, complete with track marks in the underwear?  Or could make Patty Hearst, Ricki Lake, Edith Massey, and Tracey Lourdes meaningful and fabulous?  I watch Serial Mom many times per year, and I've tried so hard to try to write lessons where I could justify showing that film to a class.

 

John Waters has long been my favorite director, as well as the focus of many undergraduate research papers.  Ever since I found Cookie Mueller's book at the local library, I became a big fan of his films, to the point where people have requested that I be the one who chooses the films they should watch to get a real feel for John Waters.  

 

As for my favorite quote (and the one I use when people anger me):
"I've got a knife here in my pocketbook and I will cut you up after class!" (from Female Trouble).

Good times!

Forget Grey Garden's Big Edie and Little Edie for a minute.  I think the radical terrorist filmmakers from "Cecil B. Demented" should take over HBO and force them to do an eighteen and a half hour miniseries about Edie Massey.

Other than that, I'm with snicks: our household must watch the Cha Cha heels scene at least once on Christmas Eve or else someone's gonna get a face full of egg nog.  But John Waters has actually provided us with many warm holiday moments: for example, if you're feeling patriotic, and its the Fourth of July, you might put on the final scene of "Multiple Maniacs" and watch Divine going on a bloody rampage (after she's been sexually assaulted by a giant lobster) followed by the National Guard shooting her while Kate Smith sings "God Bless America." It'll make you more proud to be an American than a Lee Greenwood album. You'll stand up and salute!

Or if it's Mother's Day, try this little clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK_4ILe2Iq4

Female Trouble is his masterpiece, IMO.

John was on "Hollywood Shootout" the other night and pointed out that Kroger Babb invented "Four-Walling." Those dumb ases Peter Bart and Peter Guber had never even heard of him!!!! 

 

"Suzanne Summers, this is my bad side!"

There are so many lines, so many great ones that I can't even begin to cover them.  But, this one I think is appropriate.   It makes me feel all tingly inside.

For good or bad, it seems have have brought drag into the mainstream, and then with the musical subtly dragged the mainstream into slightly queerer waters.  (Pardon the pun.)  Favorite line, uttered by Divine in a voice that would make Gengis Khan quiver: "...and my diet pill is WEARING OFF." 

Not a single quote impresses me more than the fact that there are so many, but it's one thing Watter's did: Johnny Depp in Cry Baby. The movie itself wasn't Water's best accomplishment, but Depp was still on the heels of 21 Jump Street -his career barely started and he was doomed to play teen, heart throbs or disappear. Waters told him that the way to shake the typecasting was to mock it. Depp took him up on the challenge and look at Johnny now.

 

The immortal Pia Zadora as a beatnik in "Hairspray" -- "When I smoke reefer, I AM Odetta!"

 

 

well just look at my commenty thing at the bottom, I was raised in hamilton new zealand, a sh8t hole of the highest level, but when I discovered john, I knew there was a kindred spirit in the world.  i love the pleasure I get making a friend watch desperate Living for the first time, "The children are having sex, Beth is pregnant, and I narrowly escaped an assasination attempt on my life'........the great mink Stole, how I love her.

watching Pink Flamingos at a midnight show in 84 and people still being disgusted and revolted....such joy.

Finding Shock Value, the book and just reading it til the cover fell off!!!!

hank you John, you saved my life

Fav line.................'Nothing can destroy the beauty that is facism'.....Í am gonna blow your bowels out

x

steve gray

wellington, nz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pussywillow,dotty!

Aunt Ida's thoughtful assessment of world structure is certainly something I quote often (along with "Stupid trees! Stealing my oxygen!") But I don't think I've ever laughed harder than in Desperate Living when the maid shouts "I don't want no white man lookin' at my Tampax!"

 

But John is brilliant and every little thing he do is magic. Tab Hunter's autobiography has a fabulous account of being saved by the Dreamlanders. Lucky Tab.

 

She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain~ Louisa May Alcott

 

At the old Orson Welles Theater, while waiting in line at all the Midnight Madness screenings, I would stare at the poster for "Pink Flamingos", enthralled by the photo of Divine, in that incredible outfit and the movie subtitle, "An exercise in poor taste".  It was years before I finally saw the film and it was worth the wait -- thinking every laugh, moment was the most outrageous until the next one came along. By the end, I was limp with laughter: "You have been conviceted of asshole-ism. The punishment: DEATH!..."  I apply that quote to so many people: George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh...

John's first book demonstrated his other writing ability and another favorite line. In describing Edith Massey: "She has four teeth, no two near each other."  I had the privilege of meeting Edie when she was appearing with her punk band promoting her song, "Punks Get Off The Dope".  They only did the one song.  After performing it twice, she graciously took questions from the audience.  I went up and got a big kiss from her. A treasure.

I brought a friend, Lenny Guisti with me to see "Desperate Living" and he became an instant Divine fan.  When Divine came to Boston to promote her single, "Native Love", Lenny and I went to the short-lived gay club, "Pipeline" to see her.  We were at the very front edge of the stage and, for some reason, Divine zeroed in on Lenny.  When you have 350 pounds of Divine leaning down and leering at you, it can be might intimidating.  Well, Lenny freaked out, and ran out of the club.  As I had paid to see Divine, I wasn't leaving until she had finished!! Afterwards, I went outside to find Lenny, leaning against the building, hyperventilating. It changed him forever... Divine: god rest his/her soul.

 

Movie quotes:

"Oh god, eggs! Babs, eggs! I love you Egg Man!"

"E-way are-way e-thay ilthiest-fay eople-fay live-aay" ("We are the filtihiest people alive" in pig latin)

"These aren't Cha-Cha heels!" "Fuck you mother! Fuck you father! I hate Christmas!"

"No wearing white after Labor Day!"

Books: Hysterical reading

• Shock Value
• Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters

John's introduction of Gregg Araki for his Provincetown Film Festival award was one of the funniest 'tributes' I have ever heard.  John is always involved in the Festival and a figure each summer in P-Town with his boyfriend.

John is a national treasure, of the filthy sort.  Thanks John!

"I've been things and seen places." -- Mae West

 

Waters is well known for loyalty to those who helped him create his earlier films. I attended a screening of Female Trouble where a continual member of his acting troupe of characters was there and mentioned that she had been in every movie he had released. A judge who was on the panel, which was to discuss film censorship before the showing of the film, showed genuine affection for Waters and his amusing ways. The judge was originally a female lawyer who represented him and later became a judge. It's odd how so many people feel such close personal affection for someone known for such outlandish and offensive perspective.