PINK FLAMINGOS

Banned in some places when it was originally released, Variety magazine dubbed PINK FLAMINGOS “one of the most vile, stupid and repulsive films ever made.” In the 1980s and 1990s, John Waters has made bizarre but more mainstream movies such as HAIRSPRAY, CRY BABY and SERIAL MOM. However, in the 1970s, while riding the wave of rebelliousness and anarchy of the 1960s, John Waters set out to create, in his own words, “an exercise in bad taste.” PINK FLAMINGOS goes beyond bad taste, stupidity and repulsiveness into immorality, perversity and wickedness.

Starring the now-deceased overweight transvestite Divine as “herself”, the story is about his quest to maintain the title given to him by the press as “The Filthiest Person Alive.” In this story, Divine hides under the pseudonym of Babs in a pink trailer off the beaten trail with his egg-loving, insane mother, his sexually perverse son Cracker and a female voyeuristic companion, named Cotton. Together, they lead a bizarre and filthy, but quiet existence.

Divine’s title is challenged by underground baby-ring leaders, Raymond and Connie Marble. The two kidnap young hitchhiking women, hold them captive in their basement, impregnate them with their manservant and sell the resulting babies to lesbian couples. Babs and the Marbles battle it out with one disgusting act after another leading to an ultimately violent conclusion.

John Waters received a great deal of notoriety and infamy for this blatant breaking of every morality code instituted for motion pictures. Even today, it firmly maintains the title given to it by Variety as “one of the most vile, stupid and repulsive films ever made.” PINK FLAMINGOS, however, goes beyond this into evilness by exalting, displaying and praising human degradation. It also includes several blasphemies where Divine declared himself God. (Divine’s untimely death certainly must have given him the opportunity to learn otherwise.)

The movie, in demonstrating countless acts of human degradation, has been a sort of cult hit at midnight screenings. The people who enjoy this movie are as lost as Divine was. Certainly, those who would pay money to see this filth must believe that they too are filthy. Like attracts like. This movie is only getting a limited release because Fine Line knows that much of middle America will not want to see this garbage. Most of the disgusting acts in this movie cannot be talked about in a family magazine. Just know that your time and humanity are more valuable than spending it at PINK FLAMINGOES and pray that John Waters will discover the one true God.