JOHN WATERS GETS FILTHY FOR CHRISTMAS.
John Waters decorates his home for the holidays, and — as you can imagine — the décor covers a lot of kitschy ground. But, the creator of the 1972 cult classic film “Pink Flamingos” states flatly, “I don’t have one pink flamingo in my house. The sight of even one makes me crazy. But yes, people have given me so many things for so many years. Some things you start collecting, but they’re too easy to collect and you end up with too much.”
This seems like the right time to tell the 73-year-old writer, filmmaker, artist and iconoclast, about my clown-art collection.
“Do you have any by John Wayne Gacy?” he asks.
I do not.
“I got one as a gift. I’d never buy one. I wasn’t going to give that closet queen any of my money.”
I mention that I’d once seen a clown painting on eBay by Mussolini’s son.
“God … fascist clown art,” he says. “That’s a subculture.”
For more than a half-century, Waters has created a subculture of his own, starting with some underground short films and then some slightly less underground feature films. The Baltimore native became a pioneer of transgressive cinema and art. Years later, he can still be counted on to shock and startle.
Waters’ films continue to circulate among midnight moviegoers. This year he published another book, “Mr.
Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder.” And as has been customary for the past 12 or so years, Waters is touring the States with “A John Waters Christmas: Filthier and Merrier,” a performance of holidaythemed material that is, well, filthy and merry, as Waters shares stories about “drunken parents,” “falling trees” and “rotten pets.”
“The stories we remember are often the ones when tragedies occur, but I try not to dwell on tragedy for the Christmas show,” he says. “Some of the terrible things are part of it, though. And there’s judgment of Santa: Who is he to spy on children? Torturing reindeer and living with a wife who doesn’t do anything but serve him.”
The performance sprung from a book Waters wrote years ago about why he loves the holiday. A one-off show grew and grew until “A John Waters Christmas” became a road show each December. “It’ll stuff your turkey,” is its subtitle this year.
The holiday has morphed into a carnival-style ritual involving booze and indulgences of different sorts, of uncomfortable proximity to extended family and a weird modern mythology that has largely supplanted the day’s original meaning. So late in the year, it marks both the end of something and the beginning of something, which might be why it can summon depressive clouds for some.
“There’s always been some darkness there,” Waters says. “Just the thought of Christmas throws some people into a depression. But I enjoy working on this show. For me it’s like a drag queen on Halloween or a groundhog on Groundhog Day. I know it’s coming, so I start writing it early.”
And over the years, the tone of the show has changed as the holiday has changed, with new Christmas idiosyncrasies about which to riff. Like the progressively early start date for holiday décor.
“Now it seems to start on Halloween,” Waters says. “When I was young it wasn’t that way. Soon it’ll start on Labor Day. But everything is changing so much. Think about retail. There aren’t any stores anymore. Don’t you just know that the shoplifters suffer at Christmas now? There’s no such thing anymore as hiring Christmas help. So I guess that’s what I am. I’m the part-time Christmas help.”