It's time at last to spotlight the patron saint of this podcast, the pope of filth himself: John Waters. While he's better known for Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble is the most potent and maybe the best of his 1970s work, a razor-sharp satire of heteronormative culture that can only flourish because it comes from such a tight team of collaborating artists and weirdos.
But it's also worth asking: what happens when an outsider artist becomes a public figure? What does that new element of privilege do to their art and how they relate to the marginalized community they come from?
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of sexual assault, incest, homophobia, transphobia, child abuse (physical/emotional/sexual), cults, and ableism
I Am Divine (Documentary; also on Netflix): https://vimeo.com/ondemand/iamdivinefilm
Female Trouble Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5xziMBpf0Q
Shoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HjIljJd-o0
John Waters Interview (2015): https://www.indiewire.com/2015/08/john-waters-on-caitlyn-jenner-we-cant-make-fun-of-her-241129/
John Waters Interview (2018): https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/08/john-waters-homotopia-festival-liverpool-manson-murders
1:00 John Waters and Filth
9:00 Divine and Gender
11:30 Content Warnings
13:00 The Life and Times of Dawn Davenport
26:00 Queer Satire
31:00 Modern Waters and Serial Mom
38:00 Should You Watch This
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