John Waters's Pecker

by Mark J. Huisman
September 25, 1998

John Waters

"I once saw Divine walk out of a hardware store with a TV in one hand and a chain saw in the other," says John Waters. "He was so weird lookin' to people back then that they were just plain scared to make eye contact. So he'd just walk on down the street or climb into the car and drive off."

"He was better at shoplifting than I was. But he got caught. I never got caught in my life," says the fifty-two-year-old film legend, laughing at past antics. "I even did something that's in Pecker. I went into a store, put on all the clothing I could, went up to the counter and filled out a job application -- fake name, address, phone number, the works -- and walked out with all the stuff."

Suddenly, with a roll of his bright, wide eyes, Waters draws the line. "I'm only going to give up the stuff on which the statute of limitations has expired. If you think you're going to get the murder rap out of me, you're crazy."

It's a little surreal, sitting with Waters in his neatly appointed West Village apartment, the pied-a-terre to his Baltimore digs and a definite step up from the trailer of one Babs Johnson. Famed for his early outrageousness and the fiercely irreverent streak which remains in his work today despite constant talk that he's swimming in the mainstream, Waters looks the picture of normalcy. His iconic face, with its high brow and swept back ebony hair, is framed by almost bookish black eyeglass frames. He wears a neat black suit, white shirt and black tie with a thick silver stripe cascading from the knot. On his feet are black sneakers, their white laces knotted and re-knotted. The furnishings have plush upholstery and are stacked with pillows; the walls are lined with novels and huge tomes about art and sculpture. Filthy though his films may be, his home harbors nary a speck of dust. As he recalls decades gone by with obvious fondness, Waters has no desire whatsoever to experience them again.

"I function a lot better when I can park my car legally next to the camera truck and there is actually food you can eat. And after I yell "Cut!", I don't want to have to scream at the actors "Run! Run!" I don't want to have to flee the police. I paid my dues. I did that."

Not only did Waters flee the police, but he was also arrested countless times on obscenity charges for screening his work publicly. "Every time we went before a jury, we thought it would help that the Museum of Modern Art bought one of the original Pink Flamingos prints. And every time we'd get convicted. It was like, 'Oh, it's art. It's bad.'"

Twenty-five years later, Waters tussled with the Motion Picture Association of America, which rates all films released by the studios, over his new film's title. "They flagged it because of the word, though they didn't know what the film was about. I had to fly to L.A. and go to a hearing with a lawyer. We'd made this two-page list of titles -- Octopussy, In & Out and the best one, Free Willy. They listen to your argument and then you have to go outside and wait -- just like a court. And when I went back in they were all looking at the floor and I thought 'Oh, no, I'm going to get convicted again.' But it turned out OK for my Pecker."

Despite that experience, much has changed in those twenty-five years. All the companies that once made independent films are now owned by Hollywood studios, including Pecker's distributor, Fine Line Films, a division of New Line Cinema (the original distributor of Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos), which is part of Time Warner. Queen Divine is gone, having died of a heart attack in late 1988. (Though fecal matter, which he once so infamously digested, lives on in the form of South Park's Mr. Hanky, who even gets his own dialogue and close-ups). A thoroughly sanitized New York City has outlawed sex shops. John Waters disdains contemporary club life.

"I'm so happy I'm not twenty any more. If I wanted to stay out all night, where would I go?" he asks with disappointment. "I have to go to my memory. The places I went, the outrageous experiences I had -- sipping a cocktail while your best friend got naked in the corner, seeing Angela Lansbury at Hellfire -- that's over."

"I never see anybody famous at Blow Buddies or the 82 Club," he says with mock outrage about the famous San Francisco and East Village sex establishments. "Next it'll be prohibition." Waters guffaws again, offering his very own campaign platform: "A Blow Buddies in every neighborhood! Just like Starbucks." He raises his trademark eyebrows: "Baltimore has more edge than New York."

On the set of Pecker

Even if there isn't a sex or coffee shop in your neighborhood, there's a theater showing Waters' Pecker. The film is a departure of sorts for the madcap director, but preserves the humor fans expect. Like most of his films, Pecker is about family -- from the trashy Linkletters and renegade Johnsons to the socially conscious Turnblatts -- with one crucial difference.

"This is by far the most functional, normal family I've ever made a film about," says Waters. "They're peculiar, but they're very lovely, very caring. Pecker's mother genuinely doesn't believe that homeless people should not look as good as the rest of us. For her, it's about self-esteem. Why shouldn't a bag lady own a flowered plastic rain poncho, if she wants one. And she sells to them for half price." When a visitor asks if they could be called white trash, Waters howls.

"The family in this movie is not white trash," he insists, shaking his head back and forth as the volume of his voice climbs. "And I have certainly made films about those people, but I wouldn't call them that. White trash is the last acceptable racist phrase. It's like saying nigger without saying it. I'm shocked that people use both but don't think they're racist."

Waters credits his own parents with teaching him "to worship good taste." He is also quick to note his family's pivotal role in his career. "My first camera was a little Brownie that my grandmother gave me," he recalls with a smile, his sparkling eyes momentarily staring into the past. "I didn't even know you were supposed to edit the film. I thought you just showed what came out of the camera."

He's traveled a long road since directing and starring in his first short, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, made with the assistance of a friend who worked in a camera store and stole all the film stock and processed it secretly. "Then, for my next few films, Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos, I stole money from my parents."

Fans in New York are in for a treat with Waters' next museum retrospective (he's previously been feted by museums in Baltimore and Los Angeles) at New York's Museum of the Moving Image, which starts on October 17 and is an honor previously afforded to the likes of Martin Scorcese and Jean-Luc Godard. MOMI will show virtually all of Waters' films and recent treats like his guest spot from The Simpsons. How does Waters feel about dusting off the museum piece slip covers? "I'm old," he quips, "But I'm still impressed."

And still working. Waters is looking forward to his next production, Cecil B. Demented, which was scheduled to be shot before Pecker but fell through due to casting problems. He hopes the flick about a gang of teens who terrorize the film industry -- "I certainly know all about that" -- will go into production next spring.

And he deftly throws a bone to all viewers eager to see Steve Yeager's much-anticipated, oft-delayed Waters/Divine-early-days-documentary Divine Trash. "I don't think you'll have to wait much longer," Waters says through a teasing grin. "They've had some distribution problems, but those are being ironed out."

Two viewers with a leg up on the rest of us include Waters' mother, who attended the Baltimore world premiere screening of Divine Trash with Divine's mother. Neither had ever seen any footage from the films their sons made together. "I saw them squirming," Waters recalls. "No mother can be happy about those films."

Waters gave the folks a piece of advice that's still appropriate for new viewers today. "Don't even try to figure out why we made that film. Don't even think about it. Just move on. I even told Divine's mother, 'If it makes you feel any better, I thought it up, he didn't.'" Her response gave Waters a chuckle. "She said, 'I just decided some of it was so awful I had to laugh.' Now that's maternal maturity."

* Read Rob Blackwelder's PQ review of Pecker.

Watch the original movie trailer for Female Trouble in RealVideo or QuickTime in the PQ Online Cinema.

Check out the Official Pecker Website.