“I
think he’s finally done it, he’s topped himself,”
a friendly fellow movie-goer said as I asked her what she thought
of the pre-screening of John Waters’ A Dirty Shame. I couldn’t
help but feel that her enthusiasm may have been, in part, an attempt
to camouflage any outright shock that she may have experienced.
She might not have been entirely on point claiming that Waters had
traversed into brand new territory. A Dirty Shame is by no means
the most shocking thing ever to come out of Baltimore’s most
notorious cinematic upstart, but it’s no doubt the most brilliant
thing he’s done since his pre-pop heyday; and yes, I mean
brilliant, in as far as it’s synonymous with “crass,”
“crude,” and outright “filthy.” And maybe
before delving into the high points of a film that features characters
engaging in most every sexual fetish imaginable and stars Selma
Blair as an exotic dancer with a comically enhanced set of, uhm,
boobs?... I should fluff this review with a bit of historical and
cultural context.
It’s easy to say that Waters is no longer the high priest
of shock that he once was, with contemporary moviemakers like Trey
Parker and Matt Stone and a variety of independent filmmakers doing
the majority of envelope-pushing. But Waters, a thinly mustached
pop icon dubbed the “Pope of Trash” by no less than
William S. Burroughs, holds a unique place in the history of contemporary
cinema. The mere mention of his name usually elicits a visceral
reaction; sometimes vitriolic moral indignation and a slight gagging
noise, sometimes an impassioned rant intended to write him off as
little more than a scatophiliac little kid, and sometimes a bright-eyed
laudation of his no-holds-barred filth that may or may not be accompanied
by the appropriate humping of inanimate objects.
To be forthcoming, I fall into the third category, the chair-humping
category as it were. That’s not to say, though, that I’ve
given Waters a blank check. I’ve found his forays into the
mainstream, his shift from the “high filth” of Desperate
Living and Pink Flamingos to the “high camp” of Hairspray
and eventually Pecker (which put me to sleep,) to be spotty at best.
But A Dirty Shame is no doubt Waters’ best work since that
gritty, no-holds-barred period before he started courting mainstream
actors; and don’t think I didn’t have my reservations.
After all, the guy was able to get Sonny Bono to star opposite the
mythically vulgar Divine in Hairspray, but could he really squeeze
the NC-17 rating for all it’s worth with names as big as Selma
Blair and purveyor of “doin’ it” music Chris Isaak
on his team? Yes he most certainly could, by recruiting Jackass
star Johnny Knoxville to play Ray-Ray, the greasiest, sleaziest
perv of them all. In addition to the bigger names, classic Waters
camp actors like Mink Stole (who I still have a crush on, even if
she’s long past her days as the neon-haired Connie Marble)
star throughout, and it doesn’t seem as though any of the
big names are particularly concerned about discussing concepts (shrimping,
watersports, and infantilism, to name a few) that might upset their
mothers.
In the classic Watersian tradition, the film begins with a basic
premise that promptly spirals out of control, and by the time one
realizes that nothing is making a lick of sense, it doesn’t
really matter. Tracy Ullman and Chris Isaak star as Sylvia and Vaughn
Stickles, mild-mannered convenience store attendants with a vanilla
sex life and a daughter Caprice (Selma Blair) who’s been locked
in her room for a variety of perverse transgressions not limited
to “nude drunk driving.” We’re introduced to a
variety of neighbors who all seem to be unduly focused on doin’
it, and realize that something weird is afoot. In fact, it turns
out that for some inexplicable reason, a simple bump on the head
will turn most anyone into a raving sex addict with a penchant for
doing something a bit edgy to get his or her rocks off.
Is that really all it takes? Sylvia’s transformation into
a “cunnilingus bottom” after receiving a thump on the
noggin gives an opportunity not only for a “fire superimposed
over the crotch” shot or two, but also for some of the most
evocative euphemisms for oral sex one could ever imagine, including
“sneezing on the cabbage.” “Sneezing on the cabbage”?
How can anyone not love this? How can anyone not love the dirt-worshipping,
raw-meat molesting Mysophile, whose actions raise the deep, profound
question of if we haven’t all at one time wanted to... eat
someone else’s boogers, you know, in that way?
Fetishists crop up all over, their sex-o-centric way of life protested
by “Neuters,” anti-depressant-gobbling normals who intend
to protect common decency by making sure that everyone is in a 12-step
program and sticking to the missionary position. As head bumps and
their accompanying surreal camera sequences become more frequent,
Ray-Ray reveals the true nature of the injuries as, at least from
what I was able to gather, playing into some larger, quasi-religious
picture wherein paradise is reached by the invention of a new sex
act, with Sylvia Stickles leading the charge as some type of sexual
messiah. In his quest to boldly go how no man has gone before, Ray-Ray
is drugged with Prozac, conceived by Waters as the universal anti-boner,
and folks are transformed from “Neuter” and back in
a final scene so loaded with polymorphous perversion one can’t
help but expect Divine to waltz in and start licking the wallpaper.
Maybe, just maybe, Waters is trying to teach us something with this
film, and I don’t just mean trying to teach us what an upper-decker
is (a term I had somehow managed to remain ignorant to despite the
fact that most would assume I’d be the first person to latch
on to anything involving the innovative placement of turds in public
restrooms.) We see the “Neuters” throughout the film
ranting and raving about the “pubic hair in the air”
and expressing concerns that their fair city is spiraling out of
control as residents start freaking out, hooking up, and beating
off like it’s going out of style. But if we take a step back,
aren’t the “Neuters,” the alleged purveyors of
absolute moral truth, swallowed up in the exact same discourse of
hyper-sexuality that they decry the pervs for being hung up on?
Ok, maybe it’s a bit of a stretch – maybe Waters just
wanted to, as was the case in Pink Flamingos, make a movie that
would make his friends laugh. If this is the case, I’d still
really like to be friends with John Waters. A2P
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