If the only one you’ve seen is Pink Flamingos, you’re missing out.

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)

Female Trouble Theme

Shoes

John Waters Interview (2015)

John Waters Interview (2018)

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

Say hi to Dorothy and Vrai on Twitter @writervrai and @dorothynotgale

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