Pink Flamingos
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- See also Caribbean flamingo.
- See also Plastic flamingos.
Pink Flamingos is a 1972 film directed by John Waters. It made an underground star of the flamboyant and obese drag queen Divine. The independent film also stars David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Channing Wilroy, Cookie Mueller, Paul Swift, and Edith Massey. Produced to a budget of only $12000, it was shot on weekends in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland.
Plot Summary
Divine lives under the pseudonym "Babs Johnson" with her egg-loving mother, Mama Edie, delinquent son Crackers, and Cotton, a like-minded companion whose simple pleasure is voyeurism. They reside in a mobile home (in front of which can be found a pair of pink, plastic flamingos, accounting for the film's title) on Philpot Road in Phoenix, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore (John Waters' hometown). After finding that Divine had been named "the filthiest person in the world" by a paper, a rival family, the Marbles, set out to destroy the tight-knit family but come unstuck in the process. The Marbles own an "adoption clinic," which is actually a black market of babies. They kidnap young women, rape them, and let them die in child birth.
Notes
- Some of the film's more shocking scenes include a sex scene involving a live chicken (which was killed in the process and subsequently eaten), Divine stealing meat by hiding it in her "private oven" (i.e. between her legs, under her dress), Divine giving a "present" to her son on his birthday (performing oral sex), a musical scene with a fully exposed gesticulating anus, and an infamous finale in which Divine completely chews up and swallows actual dog feces.
- The film's narrative does not bear up under close scrutiny (a package is mailed and delivered in the same afternoon) and there are scenes which are hard to watch but, according to interviews, this was exactly what Waters intended. Waters himself called the film an "exercise in poor taste." Many viewers, in fact, watch Pink Flamingos in order to be shocked.
- In 1997 the film was re-released, with an improved stereo soundtrack (which, unlike the original, was made available to the general public, on compact disc), and after the end of the original movie the new version contained a brief video commentary by Waters, plus a few scenes cut from the original release. The re-release was rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America.
- The Funday Pawpet Show holds what is called the "Pink Flamingo Challenge", in which the ending to the movie is played to the audience while they eat a (preferrably chocolate) confection. Videos of the show are forbidden from showing the movie clip, only the reaction of the audience.