Female Trouble (1975)

Female Trouble (1975)

January 8, 2005

DVD, Somerville, Massachusetts

** / ****

By Scott Muoio

Each year in late winter The Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation makes its way from La Jolla, California to Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theater. And each year the midnight madness crowd storms the place like a 300 pound man at The Old Country Buffet gorging on the perverse, intentionally offensive cartoons and animated shorts. For it is within these magical mini movies that no joke is too repulsive and no image or creed left standing without proper ridicule. It is an underground tradition that never gets tiresome even as the frigid winter morning greets us in the wee hours on our chilly treks home.

For many years now I’ve gone to the Coolidge Corner Theater to bask in the grotesque that is the Spike and Mike festival. Over that time I have viewed lots of different skits, some funny, others weird or provocative, and many others just plain dumb. But like any good variety show, the good and the bad alike are the reason I plop down my hard earned money each year. For beyond the mere cartoons, it is the camaraderie of sitting in a theater of misfits at midnight, heeing and hawing at the screen, drunk on lack of sleep, booze, and who knows what else that truly transforms this festival into something very special. And that brings me to John Waters…

Although he has no formal affiliation to Spike or Mike and has never had any of his work appear in the show, Waters is nonetheless The Godfather of this misunderstood phenomenon known as The Midnight Movie. Waters set the stage for Spike and Mike, Rocky Horror, Tom Green, and Johnny Knoxville 33 years ago with Pink Flamingos, a film that rubbed the perverse in the face of all who could handle it and simultaneously gave birth to a cult of sleep deprived, coffee obsessed, chain-smoking weirdoes that finally had a movement to call their own.

Fuck the hippies. Fuck the hipsters. Flamingos was an underground movement without the cool, without the pretension, and certainly without the shine. Where a person like Andy Warhol attempted to make a point with his artsy-fartsy underground films that were more talked about than actually seen because of their boring execution yet fabulous ideas, Waters took that point and shoved it straight up the ass of pretension, at last bringing a good name to bad taste for perhaps the first time in history. And with one fell swoop, The King of the late night movies was crowned.

Female Trouble is Waters’ follow up to the notorious Pink Flamingos, a pair of films that must be seen to be disbelieved. Female Trouble falls in the middle of Waters’ “early period,” where shock was his intention before he started to reach out for some kind of mature audience rather than the rubber necking crowd. Where Female Trouble’s follow-ups Polyester and most definitely Hairspray are the first films that prominently show an editor’s eye on the perverse, Female Trouble is Waters’ coup de gras of filth without limits. Starring Divine, the 300 pound female impersonator and most overwhelming presence in most of Waters’ early films, it is the height of Waters’ perversions.

So what is Female Trouble? For those not yet Waters aficionados it can most fittingly be described as the result of shock over story, offensive images over coherent actions, obsession over technique, littered with profanity laden diatribes shouted as loudly as possible, and male nudity and raunch that resembles almost nothing else you will ever see, save another John Waters movie. Yes, there is a story here, something about a girl (played by Divine) who doesn’t get what she wants for Christmas, gets in with the “wrong crowd” (and “wrong” is about the biggest understatement in eternity), and flaunts herself to anyone and everyone under the mantra, “crime is beauty!” But really, this is all stark window dressing compared to the wacky characters, their outlandish images, and Waters’ absurdist worldview that leaves no holy cow untipped. And as a Waters aficionado, myself, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The first half of the film is exceptional. The sight gags are hilarious (Divine in two roles, one male and one female, is brilliant), the sets inspired and fascinating (the apartment where most of the action takes place was Waters’ own real pad in the ‘70s), the dialogue highly quotable (“I'm getting a hard-on! Beauty always gives me a hard-on!”), and the ideas about the sensationalism of criminals way ahead of its time. The supporting cast of Waters regulars are all here and in ripe form, from Edith Massey as the promoter of the homosexual lifestyle to the hairdressing impresarios David Lochary and Mary Vivian Pearce, from Divine’s retarded “child” played by Mink Stole to is he or isn’t he stoned (I think we all know the answer to that one) Danny Mills as Divine’s short lived, gap-toothed lover, and a gaggle of other misfits and cretins that are as vibrant and outlandish as the hairdos and wallpaper that battle it out with each other for center stage.

The second half of the movie, however, slips drastically in quality. Where the first half was fresh and fast paced, the second is tedious and degenerates from degradation to repetition. The screaming characters eventually grate rather than amuse and an awkward court scene drags much more than any other part of the film. The finale couldn’t come soon enough but once it does, it provides a few more yucks before Waters wraps things up with a closing shot you’re not soon to forget.

It is in this final image that we see Waters transforming before our eyes from mere shockmeister to purveyor of filth philosophy. Unlike Flamingos, where Waters tacks on one additional gross out just to be sure his audience walks out repulsed, in Female Trouble shock gives way to message as Waters’ final statement about criminal celebrity trumps any bodily fluid joke that might stand in its way. Therein lies the first inkling that Waters would indeed one day abandon his all out assault on supposed good taste and “go PG”, a move that was both inevitable and well done eventually culminating in Hairspray, the most mainstream effort of his career. Sure, he would eventually return to the obscenely perverse with, A Dirty Shame, but never again would he be as unconventionally shocking as Female Trouble.

I believe John Waters is a special kind of genius. He is a man of innovation and far sighted ideas that push through a world that has little desire for such a thing. He creates works that have meaning and challenge our ideas of morality and normalcy. The cult of John Waters continues to thrive because he has stayed loyal to his vision for well over thirty years while somehow managing to get his ideas out of his head and to the masses when such a thing seems impossible for anyone who isn’t willing to sell his soul to do so. Most important to Waters’ legacy is the gentle hand he uses with his entourage of nonconformists, never once putting them down but rather, showing a sweet sentimentality for their earnest plight to be recognized and accepted as something other than merely misunderstood and expendable. Sure, the kooks and crackpots he employs in his films are acting, so to speak, but they are also people cut of a similar cloth to the characters they portray. Not nearly as vicious, profane, or demented as their characters, there remains much truth between actor and character that only a man such as John Waters could make work as perfectly as he does.

To sum up, Female Trouble may not be a “good movie” by normal standards, but it is undeniably bizarre and engrossing and an essential part of the John Waters’ canon and modus operandi. If you only see one early period John Waters movie in your lifetime, see Pink Flamingos. It best represents Waters’ twisted mind yet somehow also shows his sentimentality for geeks and miscreants the world over. But if Pink Flamingos touches your disturbed side, then definitely see Female Trouble. It is the height of Waters’ perversity and yet another jaw dropping exhibition that will pave your way to John Waters aficionado status.

Long live The King, baby!