John Waters' Flop

I recently visited the opening of John Waters' art show at the Rena Bransten Gallery.

The show is called "Flop" and his medium is to take photos of things on TV and make a colage out of it. He also made colages out of stacks and stacks of 3 by 5 notecards that were once his "to do" lists. There is definitely some irony in John Waters touring his art shows around after poking fun at the art world in "Pecker".

And speaking of peckers... Has John Waters been an influence on porn? I'd say he's probably the BIGGEST influence in the way porn has evolved, especially in the beginning. Put a group of gay men together for a few hours, and at least one reference to a John Waters film will inevitably come up. ("My daughter does NOT have bugs! My Tracy is a clean teen!") Quoting John Waters movies is especially prevelant among our little community of rentboys and twisted ex-film students. ("Who wants to be FAMOUS??! Who wants to DIE for art?")

I'm sure there are plenty of examples of gay porn movies that were influenced by John Waters movies, at least in the acting style. Off the top of my head, I can think of three 1970's movies: Non-Stop (with a birthday party featuring naked waiters and a drag queen that pops out of casket), Drive (a sadistic drag queen with a plan to rule the world), Casey (Casey Donovan in a dual role as himself and his fairy godmother), and two more recent comedies Porn Academy and Devil Is A Bottom. Watch these movies and tell me the humor didn't get influenced by John Waters.

Despite the fact that most new porn movies have no plot at all, I still feel that John Waters encouraged a whole generation of film makers to pick up a camera and shoot something, even if it is low budget.

And if you have ever seen Chi Chi LaRue's stage show, I think she'd be the first to admit that she got a lot of her inspiration from Divine, too.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of references and influences to John Waters films, if you think of any, please add your comments.