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Movie: Pink Flamingos

Date: 1972

Category: Camp

Director: John Waters

Big Stars: Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey

Before the stars of Jackass were even born, John Waters was commiting trash and bad acts to the big screen. When most films mock or hold at a distance low-class characters, Waters has always shown his trashy characters with love, even in his most reecent films, Pecker and Cecil B Demented.

Pink Flamingos is an all-American tale of competition and status. Towering heroine Divine (Divine), dubbed "the filthiest person alive" by the rabid tabloid Midnight is living in peaceful, filthy obscurity under the name of "Babs Johnson" on the outskirts of Baltimore, MD. She lives with her mentally feeble mother, Mama Edie (Massey) who worships eggs. But Divine is forced to defend her reputation when the Marbles ( Stole and David Lochary), proprietors of an illegal adoption ring, set in motion a diabolical plot to usurp her title. The jealous Marbles, however, are no match for the resourceful Divine and her family, and the matriarch triumphantly reasserts her status as the filthiest person alive.In the film's legendary epilogue, Divine, the actor, with the aid of a Hungarian sheepdog, proves s(h)e's no slouch when it comes to filth, either.

Often called "the granddaddy of midnight movies," Pink Flamingos opened at the Elgin Theater in New York in 1973, where it proceeded to run for 50 weeks. Pink Flamingos was Waters most expensive film at the time, costing 10,000 dollars. All of his films showcase his hometown Baltimore. He's considered by many to be the King of Camp, and Pink Flamingos was his first big breakthrough.