This '70s John Waters Movie Is Still Disgusting To This Day (And That's Its Power)

Cineastes know this piece of trivia well: John Schlesinger's 1969 sex worker drama "Midnight Cowboy" remains, to date, the only Oscar-winning film to have been given an MPAA-designated "X" rating. Recall that the X rating was given back when the MPAA's rating system was still new and only incorporated four letters. There was G (for General audiences), M (for Mature audiences), R (for Restricted audiences), and X (no one under 16 can see it). The phrase "X-Rated," however, was eventually co-opted by the porn industry, as were the unofficial expansions "XX-rated" and "XXX-rated." To this day, XXX is still used to designate porn.

As such, a curious young cinematic adventurer may fire up "Midnight Cowboy" at home and expect something incredibly sexual. While "Midnight Cowboy" does contain a great deal of frank talk about sex work, as well as drug use and depressing deaths, it's actually no more hardcore than any modern drama. Indeed, in 1971, "Midnight Cowboy" was re-rated with an R rating. History sort of softened it. One may find this "softening" happening with a lot of older, violent movies. Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" was once one of the Video Nasties. Now, kids may feel it's somewhat tame in the gore department. "A Clockwork Orange" is similarly violent and bleak, but it's less violent than, say, "Terrifier 2."

One film that has never lost its ability to shock audiences, however, is John Waters' famed 1972 classic "Pink Flamingos." Over 50 years after its initial release, "Pink Flamingos" remains disgusting. Waters has noted that he cannot legally defend "Pink Flamingos" on any kind of legal obscenity charge because, well, it is obscene. Because of how extreme "Pink Flamingos" is, it remains Waters' most notorious film, as well as one of the seminal midnight movies.

As a critic, I have attempted to coin the axiom "Trash + Time = Culture," and that's certainly true of Waters. As a young criminal queer in Baltimore, Waters hoped to make edgy movies specifically designed to shock the squares. He hung out with the most exciting people in town, and they shot films guerilla style on the street. His secret weapon was legendary drag performer Divine, whom Waters considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. On David Letterman, Waters once said that "beauty is looks you can never forget, and I've walked down the street with Divine and seen car accidents happen." Perhaps against all odds, Waters and Divine somehow cracked through to the mainstream, eventually making less edgy movies like "Hairspray." These days, Waters has art shows and restrooms in museums named after him. He is a respectable elder statesman of cinema. Indeed, he is seen as an important voice in 1970s-era transgressive art. Not bad for a guy who spent his formative years smoking dope and filming Divine eating dog feces. Trash + Time = Culture.

And "Pink Flamingos" is as trashy as they come. It has a gross premise and details a litany of gross things. In the world of "Pink Flamingos," there is an unofficial body that can deem certain people the Filthiest People Alive. The current title-holder is Babs Johnson (Divine), the matriarch of a family of weird misfits. Babs' mother Edie (Edith Massey) lives in a playpen and is obsessed with eggs. Crackers (Danny Mills) is Babs' terrible son who kills chickens during sexual encounters and occasionally gets sexual favors from his mom. Cotton (Mary Vivian Pierce) is a "traveling companion" of the Johnson family. 

These are our heroes.

The marvelous thing about the Johnson family is that they care about each other. They have an ethos. They believe in filth on a philosophical level, filling them with a flipside kind of integrity. Waters clearly loves the Johnsons, even if he doesn't condone their criminality; they commit murder and eat a cop at one point. All Cops Are Brisket.

On the other side of town, the Johnsons have rivals in the form of Raymond and Connie Marble (David Lochary and Mink Stole). The Marble long to be the filthiest people alive, and their ambition immediately makes them villains. Their filth is also abusive; they kidnap women, forcibly impregnate them (using their gay butler), and then sell the resulting babies on the black market. They aim to harm the Johnsons and instigate a filth war. Naturally, the Johnsons retaliate, leading to a fiery conflagration and a public execution. Babs, serving as judge, finds them "guilty of a**hole-ism," which is kind of the thesis of the film. You can be a filthy, perverted weirdo, but don't you dare be an a**hole.

Throughout, "Pink Flamingos" does everything to make sure you're grossed out. There's unsimulated sex and nudity, on-screen animal death (yes, that's a real chicken), puking, blood, semen, and a noted scene where Divine engages in on-camera coprophagy. Waters was trying to make something shocking, and he very much succeeded. No one has dared match "Pink Flamingos" in terms of on-screen filth. It's a thing of glory.

And yet, the film is weirdly good-natured. It was shot for a mere $12,000 on chilly sets and was fueled by weed. It's grimy and amateurish. And yet there's a style and an outsider joy all its own. It' filthy, and it's still powerful.