CTVA 215 Week 3 - Pink Flamingos (1972)

Pink Flamingos is a disgusting landmark of American film. There are themes that I think are worth exploring and deconstructing, but you can tell that John Waters’ primary goal with this film was to shock and disgust as many people in as many ways as possible, and considering the reactions this film caused in my class 52 years after release, he absolutely succeeded. The loose story of this film is about Divine and the Marbles couple as they compete for the title of the “Filthiest Person Alive,” and as such the film is full of filth. The plot contains numerous rapes, murders, incest, bestiality, and the famous scene at the end of Divine really eating dog poop, and the bare bones story allows for Waters to revel in the most off-putting aspects of the film. It’s a celebration of filth and exposing these taboo and uncomfortable topics to as many people as possible. This showcasing of various disgusting acts has led people to write this film off as something only meant to shock people. However, I think there is a way to appreciate this film on a deeper level, and that’s through its relationship with queerness and the queer community. 

Connie and Raymond Marbles make this such an interesting film. They’re the antagonists who spend the entire film trying to take Divine’s title of “Filthiest Person Alive” for themselves, constantly building themselves up and reveling in their filth. What makes them so interesting to me is that despite claiming to be filthy, they spend much of the film being weirdly conservative and disgusted at the people around them. Whether it be Connie’s disgust at their servant Channing wearing her clothes or Raymond running away in fear at the sight of a trans woman, the couple are constantly revolted by people falling outside of gender norms. Also compare their homes to Divine’s, living in a nice Baltimore house while Divine and her family live in a trailer in the middle of the woods. I think that the Marbles couple can be read as representatives of straight, wealthy society, taking aesthetics from poorer queer people and passing it off as their own, seeing themselves as revolutionary for doing so. The couple comes off as very self-important in a way that Divine, having to constantly remind themselves of how scandalous and filthy they are, while Divine would rather just live her filthy life. The Marbles are fake, Divine is the real deal. For better or worse. 

John Waters is one of the most iconic and recognizable queer directors in film. He constantly works with drag queens and queer actors, with the drag queen Divine being his closest collaborator. His early collaborations with Divine helped bring underground queer filmmaking and aesthetics to the mainstream, and Pink Flamingos was his breakthrough. Directly because of its shocking and gross content, coupled with the playful presentation that Waters and his gang brings to what could be a truly horrific film, Pink Flamingos became a cult classic among queer people in particular. A community has been built around this film and its showcasing of topics that most films would never touch. Through Divine’s declarations to “Kill everyone now!” and “Eat shit!”, John Waters pushed cinema forward and inspired queer filmmakers to not shy away from disgusting, shocking and taboo subjects… because Pink Flamingos already has them all!