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Pink Flamingos

Screening on Film
Directed by John Waters.
With Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce.
US, 1972, 35mm, color, 108 min.
Print source: Warner Bros.

It is only to be expected that time would mellow John Waters, as his filmmaking has become more polished and the urge to shock is replaced by a celebration of naughtiness. It is bracing to look back at Waters’ early films, populated with friends from Baltimore’s early-1970s demimonde. Perhaps the most famous of these is Pink Flamingos, in which Divine works hard to maintain her title as “the filthiest person alive.” This campaign gives rise to episodes of incest, bestiality, murder and (most [in]famously) coprophilia. While the film is an all-out assault on good taste, what may be most shocking now is the rough look of the film as well as the cast’s anarchic physicality and apparent willingness to do anything.

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Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow