John Waters is a filmmaker and the proud “Pope of Trash,”Strange questions are not uncommon for him. But at a recent audience Q&A when someone asked him, “How did you avoid getting cancer?”He was confused. “I thought, ‘I did smoke, I’m 76 — I guess it is a fair question,’”He said it on a phone call from Provincetown, Massachusetts. “I was explaining all this, and the audience starts laughing harder and harder. And then I realized I heard them wrong. They said, ‘How did you avoid getting canceled?’”
Waters has satirized the boundaries of taste for almost 60 years. HairsprayAnd Pink Flamingos (recently rereleased by the Criterion Collection in honor of its 50th anniversary), and incisive books that take a closer look at America’s grimy underbelly. The mustachioed misfit has now taken on the idea truth with his first novel. Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad RomanceThis is a story about Marsha Sprinkle, a compulsive liar. “I had a wonderful time thinking her up,”He tells Rolling Stone. “I think readers enjoy spending time with someone so monstrous every once in a while.”
Liarmouth’Marsha Sprinkle, the protagonist, starts lying. What is your book saying about truth?
She believes that lying makes her prettier, smarter, and gives her more power. Every day, she believes in random acts and meanness. If you lie to somebody creatively, it causes anarchy, and maybe that means she’s the only person in control. I don’t know what Freud would say about lying.
One time, she tells a little boy that the Jonas Brothers have died.
I’m sure you know that I love the Jonas Brothers. That’s probably the meanest thing she does in the book, is to tell children that their idol, something terrible happened to them.
As a child, I recall hearing two rumors about Annette Funicello. [from]The Mousketeers were believed to have been killed in an automobile accident. However, this story about a girl was not true. The Buddy Deane ShowI created the dance show based on, Hairspray on. Pixie was a girl I loved. Pixie was about 4’8″ tall with a hairstyle that was almost three feet high. She quit the show, and a rumor started that she died from having roaches in her hair that came and bit her, and she had to come back on the air to prove it wasn’t true. Ricki Lake had roaches in the hair, so I made Ricki go. Hairspray. This whole lie became a kinda conveyor belt of scenes, which inspired me.
What did you hope to do with a novel that you couldn’t do with film?
It was no different. I just wanted to make people smile at things that they were surprised to find funny. And in a novel I got to go deeper in describing characters’ feelings. I’m always just trying to make myself laugh first, and then my friends, and then my readers. I think. “Am I going to get away with this one?”
Many of your characters are living their truths and don’t care what anyone thinks, even if their behavior is repugnant. What do you make of people who aren’t afraid to be themselves?
I’m always fascinated by people that don’t see how insane they act, and they really are serious about what they’re doing. Can’t you see what you look like? So I’m fascinated by people’s behavior; all writers are. You’re a spy if you’re a writer.
What is the best way to feel that comedy and fiction are closer to the truth?
If you want to convince someone else of the truth, you make them laugh and they’ll listen. Preaching, being serious, ranting, telling them they’re stupid — none of that works. You make them laugh, they’ll listen.
What do you think about people who don’t like sex like Marsha Sprinkle and others?
I think it’s refreshing to hate sex. Sometimes I think that I am thinking, “Well, why do I have to do this? I didn’t think this up.” I’m a little like Marsha, I resent instinct. I don’t mind having sex. But I wish that I had invented it. I wish it wasn’t something programmed in me.
What should people who are against sex be aware of?
People who dislike sex often hate it because they have a reason. They’ve had some kind of trauma in their background, or they just don’t get it. You might find freedom if you hate sex. You’re probably never going to fall in love, you’re not going to get hurt. You are missing something. But I don’t think there’s anything other people should know that I know. Glinda said Dorothy that Dorothy was right. “You have to find it out for yourself.”Glinda, I thought, was a little bit shitty. I don’t understand why she made Dorothy do all that. If she’d just, “Click your heels together, you can go home,”She made her nearly die, and she went through every shit. Why? So, in other words, you might be telling people what they should do. LearnWhen you write fiction or a movie. You’re telling them something that maybe they don’t know, that they take back in their own life and apply it for humor, to get through something.
Does LiarmouthHave a good moral?
You will see that she had a reason for being so bitter as you read the book. Then she realized she had to tell the truth about a man who did worse things to her than hers to her. She met her match. And maybe that’s what everybody needs, is to find their match.
Marsha was mentioned by you “random acts of meanness.”What does your book have to say about the world today?
That I’m a kind person and I think the humor in my book is not mean. Marsha learns a lot and the story has a happy conclusion.
What does this all mean for the world? Human behavior is fascinating. That’s all I’m ever saying. And that we really can’t judge anybody because we don’t know the whole story. And I think everybody’s born innocent — the exact opposite of what the Catholic church that taught me, that children were born with original sin, the most evil thing you could ever tell a child. Jews have it right. They tell them. “You’re the chosen people.” That’s what you should tell people.
Is Catholicism any good?
I always said that Catholics will have the best sex because it’ll always be dirty.
In your book Shock ValueYou wrote it in your opinion. “bad taste was the peak of entertainment.”How has bad taste changed over the five decades? Pink FlamingosAnd Liarmouth?
This was written in 1980. If my films have done anything, they’ve made bad taste a little more respectable. My early films were filled with the same type of humor that you’ll find on every TV show. Dark humor today is American humor. It was once called “sick humor,” satire, black comedy; it’s all now just American humor. Every TV show has it, every rap song has it, everything has it that’s American. It’s using things that are against you for humor.
Have you ever been shocked by a story?
I’m reading this book called HelltownHere’s a story about Tony Costa. He is a necrophile mass-murderer from Provincetown. It happened when I was very young. So now, I am in Provincetown [learning about it]This is quite shocking. His murders were truly shocking and horrible. He had sex with the victims in many different ways and cut their bodies. Necrophilia seemed to be a fear of performance. It could be.
You’d never get a negative review.
Nobody’s going to say you were a lousy fuck.
Are you familiar with any exploitation films?
I can’t think of one. What’s an exploitation film anymore? It’s amazing there isn’t a Covid movie out. In two minutes, there would have been a Covid movie about exploitation in the Sixties.
You titled a Chapter of Shock Value“Why I Love Violence.”
Fake violence in a movie, I have a great time with, but I don’t like to see real violence ever. If it’s a snuff movie, I’m not interested, because there’s no creativity in it.
Why do people commit violence?
Perhaps because they think. “Well, at least that didn’t happen to me today. I had a bad day, but I didn’t get shoved in front of a subway.”Just as they did with the editor National Enquirer once, “Why do you always write about stars failing?”And he said, “Because our readers are failing.”
Back to the “getting canceled”Question that the audience posed at you: don’t you think you’ve been canceled?
Because I’m not mean spirited and I make fun of things I love, and I make fun of the rules of the outsider world that I’ve always lived in, not the rules of my parents.
This year marks 50 years of Pink Flamingos. When it comes to cancellation potential, the one thing that stands out most is the couple who abduct and impregnat elementary school children before selling their babies off to lesbians.
It’s possible. I’m sure you can see the chicken scene. [in which a chicken is crushed between two characters when one rapes another]However, I do eat chicken. You can’t call somebody fat anymore. There’s a really rude scene where she gets a birthday card, “Happy birthday, Fatso,”And the audience laughs. But, yes, [backlash]It is possible that it is worse today due to so-called political correctness. However, this has not happened with the movie. It was added to the National Registry by the government. You can’t get a better acceptance. And I think it’s because it’s the right person wins in Pink Flamingos: Divine is the right person, according to her morals, and the other people are jealous and judgmental, everything that I’m against. The morals remain correct. Pink Flamingos, even if they’re told in a very confusing way.
Was it political correctness? Did you see Lizzo get in trouble because of a statement she made “spaz”What is the meaning of a song?
Yeah, you can’t say that word. It’s okay. [my film] Female TroubleOne of the most hilarious lines in the movie is Divine’s conversation with her daughter. “You are most definitely retarded. We had you tested by a team of doctors.”It is still a common complaint.
What do you think about how culture has changed in relation to political correctness and culture?
I used to fear the right. Now I don’t. If I’m going to get [any blowback]It would be rich, left-leaning liberal students. Which, I’m a liberal, and I guess I’m rich — I mean, if you had to say it, I’m not poor. The only thing that the new politically correct generation does is they never make fun of themselves, and that’s a flaw. And that’s how you lose followers, that’s how people go and vote for the other side.
This sounds like something you could do more of. Is there any chance you’d make another film? It’s been nearly 20 years since A Dirty Shame.
There’s definitely chances. I have two possible things in the works and both my contracts say I can’t talk about it. So let’s just say, yes, it is a possibility.
That’s good news. You were saying that a few years back. “I just write books now.”
These things are changing. Old chickens make good soup, I’ve always said it.
There’s a scene in Pink Flamingos A character mails a Turd to Divine.
Little Richard used to mail people an egg. I found it in his biography. It is so Pink FlamingosThis was not the first time that happened. That was a rumor I had.
Recently, you hosted a Pink Flamingos screening. What is it like watching that again, 50 years later, with people who haven’t seen it before?
It’s scary at first, because we said in the beginning, “How many people have seen this?”About a fourth of the audience raised a hand. It’s usually 100 [percent] — they all have. They all have it. “Mink Stole,” everybody cheers — but they were kind of quiet. They’re like, “Oh, my God, what is this?” And by the end, they’re laughing and cheering.
That’s nice to see, I’m sure.
It is. It’s proof I won.