John Waters made bad taste perversely transcendent with the forever shocking counterculture sensation Pink Flamingos, his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression. Outré diva Divine is iconic as the wanted criminal hiding out with her family of degenerates in a trailer outside Baltimore while reveling in her tabloid notoriety as the “Filthiest Person Alive.” When a pair of sociopaths (Mink Stole and David Lochary) with a habit of kidnapping women in order to impregnate them attempt to challenge her title, Divine resolves to show them and the world the true meaning of the word “filth.” Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history’s most legendary gross-out ending—Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability.
Written, Directed, and Produced by John Waters
Cinematography and Editing by John Waters
Titles by Randy Burman and Alan Rose
Technical assistants: Bob Adams, Barry Golome, Pat Moran, Ed Peranio, and Vincent Peranio
Set Design by Vincent Peranio
Divine’s Makeup and Costumes by Van Smith
Starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Danny Mills, Channing Wilroy, Cookie Mueller, Paul Swift, Susan Walsh, and Linda Olgeirson