Pink

Pink Flamingos

Pink Narcissus

Well, hello there, dear readers, and happy belated Valentine’s Day! It’s been a hectic time in the culture, which works as an excellent distraction for a single-who-hardly-mingles pop culture critic like myself, especially as we trudge through the roughest time of the year for the movies. My entire Instagram feed has been full of boyfriend hard-launches, Mardi Gras parties, Lunar New Year celebrations, Superbowl discussions, Taylor Swift discourse, and as a constant consumer of culture, it can all be a bit tiring. But this week I’m taking a reprieve from the rhetoric and focusing on a genre and color of film I’ve been wanting to explore for quite sometime: pink movies. Pink is not the first color I’ve explored on this blog, I’ve also delved into Red, Blue, and Green, but Pink is my favorite color (I mean, look at this blog), so it was high time to watch some pink movies. Since Valentine’s Day happened this week, it made perfect sense to shine a light on pink: the color of romance, nurturing, passion, sex, luxury, sweetness, innocence, and femininity. Given the fact that I’ve seen every iteration of the Pink Panther movies (both the Peter Sellers and the Steve Martin ones), and the movie Pretty in Pink (which should be better, imo), it just made logical sense for me to venture into trashy and turbulent side of pink this evening. So, naturally, I began with the iconic and controversial cult-classic film by John Waters: Pink Flamingos. In my John Waters Double Feature, I attempted to explain the colorfully crass and terrifically twisted sensibilities of his films. Born in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland, Waters has been a fixture in the fields of queer art and absurdist cinema for over four decades. He’s stated before that he’s influenced just as much by sleazy exploitation films as he is by high-brow art films—both categories that have been sampled on this blog. Like many folks my age, I was introduced to John Waters through his more palatable, mainstream movies like Hairspray, Serial Mom, and Cry-Baby (though more specifically through his episode of The Simpsons), though these offbeat masterpieces just barely scratch the surface of this auteur’s delightfully disgusting imagination. His early career was full of controversial, shock-inducing films starring his cast of friends and characters he lovingly calls The Dreamlanders, the most notable of which being Waters’ muse and frequent collaborator, Divine: a drag performer and character actor who often played violent, wild female leads. Divine starred in all of Waters’ films until her untimely death in 1988, including all three of what’s called the Trash Trilogy: Female Trouble, Desperate Living, and tonight’s first film: Pink Flamingos. This is a film who’s controversies and banned-status created such a mystique, I’ve yet to come across another filmmaker that has earned this same level of intrigue and prominence through just one, singular film. The 1972 film became a hit among midnight movie screenings and clandestine showings around Baltimore and beyond, which ultimately became events where queer communities could gather and celebrate their collective and respective otherness without fear of shame or ridicule. In a John Waters movie, no matter how mainstream or well-known, everyone is a freak, so he rightfully became a patron saint of subversive artists and queer storytellers everywhere. There is a freeing quality to all of John Waters’ films—a true sense of punk rock transgression and expression that came long before punk rock was even invented. Pink Flamingos might’ve been Waters’ most controversial film at the time, but it was hardly his last. The film follows Divine, labeled the “Filthiest Person Alive”, who has gone into hiding under the alias of Babs Johnson. She lives on the outskirts of Phoenix, Maryland in a rinky-dink pink trailer with her elderly mother Edie (Edith Massey), her delinquent son Crackers (Danny Mills), and her traveling companion Miss Cotton (Mary Vivian Pierce) The film opens on this pale pink trailer, the outside of it decorated with flamingos, as a catchy rockabilly song blares in the background. The entire soundtrack of this film is incredible, and miraculously, Waters was able to secure the rights to all but one song (“Sixteen Candles” by The Crests.) We then hear Waters’ charming voice, shouting with an exaggerated-Baltimore accent, and explaining the immense responsibility of being the Filthiest Person Alive, and how others are so threatened by it. We’re then introduced to Maryland couple Connie and Raymond Marble (Mink Stole and David Lochary), who, after reading about Divine’s status as the Filthiest Person Alive, are incredibly appalled. The Marbles are proud owners and operators of an illegal baby ring where they kidnap young women, have their manservant Channing impregnate them, sell the babies to lesbian couples, and use the proceeds to fund pornography shops and a network of dealers selling heroin in inner-city elementary schools—so, naturally they feel the title of “Filthiest Person Alive” should belong them, especially given the fact that, as Connie declares, “Divine is merely a common thief and murderer.” Thus begins a battle of filth unlike any to have ever been captured on film, and unlike any to have possibly taken place, anywhere, at any time. We get to know Divine and her entourage intimately, just as we do with the Marbles and their unwilling guests, and while both camps are equally, thoroughly filthy, there is something much more charming about Divine. Pink Flamingos features all of the usual staples of an older-Waters classic—bad taste, bad acting, hilarious humor, questionable tones, despicable characters doing despicable things—but here everything felt turned up to eleven. This film is probably best-known for a brief moment at the end, where, in a final attempt to prove her worthiness of her title of Filth, Divine bends down beside a dog and eats the poop that has freshly fallen out of its ass. This moment is shocking and disgusting, of course, but given all of the shock and disgust this film throws at you, I honestly did not find this moment to be the most disturbing. I like to consider myself an open-minded, punk-adjacent, cultured critic who doesn’t cower away from strange and sick cinema, but Pink Flamingos really tested my limits. The Ru Paul’s Drag Race Season 7 challenge where they paid homage to various John Waters scenes did introduce me to and prepare me for the likes of Edie—who wears lingerie and lives inside of a baby enclosure, begging for fresh eggs, inside Divine’s trailer—but it did not prepare me for the scene in which Divine’s son Crackers has sex with a girl while a live chicken is nested between them, nor did it prepare me for a mostly inexplicable moment where a random man at Divine’s birthday party strips nude, puts his feet behind his head, and opens and closes his asshole for roughly a minute straight. Again, dear reader, I really really try to keep an open mind and celebrate all subversive forms of art, especially those birthed from the LGBTQ+ community, but it was in these moments when I did wonder what the point of it all was. This is not to say that I wasn’t entertained, but rather, increasingly perplexed and puzzled as to what this was adding to the already outrageous plot. But even typing that out, even solidifying my questions and concerns, feels silly. Because there is not an easy or clean way to analyze or critique this kind of movie—it does not exist to please or satisfy the masses. And while I would typically roll my eyes at this kind of loophole, I have no choice but to applaud an authentic weirdo like John Waters Pink Flamingos, and all of his films, really, for defying the cultural critics and odds and standing the test of time—in spite of its uniquely sickening themes, and perhaps because of them. Amongst the scat, the rape, the incest, the murder, the cannibalism, the grandiose displays of grotesqueness, there is that undeniable Waters’-specific charm that comes from the glamorous costuming, makeup, hair, vibrant color in the production design and impeccable musical direction (particularly when Divine consumes the dog shit and “(How Much Is) That Doggie In The Window” plays) And when Divine is interviewed by a news crew later in the film, and they ask her various questions about herself, I was fully won over by this character:

“What are your political beliefs?”

“Kill everyone now, condone first degree murder, advocate cannibalism, eat shit! Filth is my politics! Filth is my life!”

“Is filth a new cult?”

“Well, it’s a minor cult right now.'“

“Do you believe in god?”

“I AM god”

I mean, in 2024 I’ve heard far crazier political takes than that. All in all, I think Pink Flamingos might fall into my list of films that I enjoyed that I never need to see again—although, it might be fun to show a friend or a potential suitor this film, just to freak them out. We’ll see. The shades of pink in this movie spanned from cute to curious to repulsive, but I am happy to announce that while the next film that I watched was equally queer and subversive, it was far, far prettier in its pink showcase. Up next was an experimental arthouse drama film from 1971 that clocks in at 71 minutes, a hallucinogenic, surrealistic journey of pleasure and pain titled Pink Narcissus. For years, the creator of Pink Narcissus was completely unknown—the credits at the end state that it was “produced, written, photographed, and directed by anonymous”—it became a famously mysterious piece of underground artwork that was at one time rumored to be made by Andy Warhol. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that director James Bidgood was finally unmasked as the filmmaker behind Pink Narcissus, and it has since been restored and remastered into a better quality—though it can still be tricky to track down. Pink Narcissus isn’t so much a narrative feature film as it is a non verbal, erotic odyssey that brings the fantasies of a gay male sex worker to life. There is an ethereal, mystical, Midsummer-Night’s-Alice-in-Wonderland aura to Pink Narcissus that was nothing short of intoxicating, and every frame that could be pink was overwhelmingly pink. The audience’s senses are given plenty to work with as we feast our eyes upon a glistening moon high in the sky, a lush field of flowers in a dark forrest, butterflies emerging from their cocoons, and a young man who is transported from idyllic scene to idyllic scene as his mind wanders. He is mostly undressed, but when he is clothed he is wearing the tightest pants known to man. There is mostly no talking, but when there is it is the cacophonous roar of the streets below this young man’s place, interspersed between fantasies. We witness his transformation and transfiguration, from a romantic meeting at a urinal, to an adventure where he is the bull to a leather biker daddy’s matador, to an Ancient Roman court where he is an emperor’s slave boy, to an extravagant scene of belly-dancing where he is the keeper of an all-male harem. (Just some light cultural appropriation.) Through all of these scenes, there is zero talking, but plenty of glorious classical music from the likes of Haydn, Prokofiev, and Gaburo. As salacious and pornographic as Pink Narcissus was, it also felt completely innocent in its portrayal of sexuality and frivolity somehow. The entirety of this film feels dreamlike and dangerous, and I could see how this film became an underground runaway hit among the LGBTQ+ community—especially given the fact that this fantasy was made before the AIDs epidemic. Apart from the final scene, Pink Narcissus was filmed inside of James Bidgood’s Manhattan loft apartment, over the course of seven years, but it is shot so beautifully that it seemed like it was made on a soundstage. Eventually, the film does evolve into some sort of climax, but it is even harder to define and explain than anything Pink Flamingos ventured to do. I did not necessarily intend to view two explicitly queer and pornographic films this week, dear readers, but apparently that is what the color Pink has to offer, and who am I to turn down such bold, unique offerings. I hope you’re all feeling as cultured and mind-blown as I do right now, but if not, you’ve got to just see these strange and beautiful cinematic experiments for yourself. Thank you for reading along this week and until next time, keep it pink!! 🩷