pink flamingos (1972)
Is there any excuse to exercise poor taste? Only if you have good taste.
Pink Flamingos sounds like a children’s movie. In many ways, it is. It’s a bunch of adults acting like immature juveniles. The story follows notorious criminal Divine, who lives in a trailer on the outskirts of Baltimore with her delinquent son Crackers, her mother Eddie, and her travel companion Cotton. Dubbed as “The Filthiest Person Alive” by the tabloids, Divine hides under the pseudonym “Babs Johnson” to keep a low profile.
Of course, there’s no fame without a bunch of haters. Jealous rivals, Connie and Raymond Marble, seek to steal her title as they believe they are much filthier than she is: they run a black market baby ring, kidnap young women so their manservant can impregnate them, and sell their babies to lesbian couples. As a side hustle for Raymond, he exposes his dick attached to a large kielbasa sausage to women passersby so he can scare them and steal their purses.
The plot doesn’t get any tamer. Other than sodomy, sex crimes, and rape, there’s animal cruelty, zoophilia, cannibalism, murder, incest, Manson family worship, homophobia, transphobia, castration, asshole dancing, foot fetishism, and dogshit eating. Truly the filthiest movie alive.
Can you justify all that for shock value and laughs? Absolutely not. To polite society, the film sounds like a nightmare. To the freaks and the outcasts, it’s a celebration. John Waters gave a stage to people who have no business appearing in movies. Divine isn’t your typical petite Hollywood starlet—she’s big, she’s fat, she’s crass, and most of all, she’s a man… Oh, the horror!
Everything you’re supposed to hate about a film is exactly what makes Pink Flamingos loved by a huge group of misfits. Not only did the actors look strange, but they also couldn’t act for shit. In fact, they were over-acting… on purpose! The fact that Pink Flamingos exists shows that anyone can make a movie. There’s no such thing as being too weird, too inexperienced, or too morally questionable. If you have a passion for cinema, no matter how outrageous or tasteless, no gatekeeper will stop you from making a film.
