The ten commandments of John Waters

One person who can’t believe director John Waters has had the career he’s enjoyed is… John Waters. He told the Film Programme: “Parents always say to their kids, ‘what were you thinking?’ I ask myself the same question...” He has devised and delivered some of the most disturbing, disgusting and hilarious visions that cinema has ever had to contend with. But what are the tenets by which the ‘Pope of Trash’ follows throughout his life and art? Behold! Here are the ten commandments of John Waters (with apologies to Moses)…

Thou shalt honour thy father and mother (sort of)

John Waters' parents were massively supportive of their son, while refusing to have anything to do with his cinematic antics. His father would provide the budget without wanting to know what the cash would be spent on. Talking about one of his early masterpieces, he told The Film programme, “No parent would be proud their son made Multiple Maniacs. They were very supportive even though they were horrified. It took me a long time to realise how loving that was. These films were everything against what they believed in.”

Thou shalt have filth

Perhaps his greatest achievement and the most notorious artefact in the John Waters oeuvre (funded by his folks) is the 1972 masterpiece Pink Flamingos (subtitled ‘An Exercise in Poor Taste’). The film deals with the hunt for the filthiest people alive. And it delivers. It’s truly disgusting. You should go and see it immediately. As John has said, “The movie was supposed to be terrorism. Against hippies. That was the spirit it was made in. As if we were all committing a comedy crime.”

Thou shalt fight

John started out wanting to shock and subvert societal norms. But even later on, when he was a more ‘mainstream’ director making films within the studio system, he still faced challenges. Censors took umbrage to the title of 1998’s Pecker. In response, John cited the films Shaft and Free Willy. John won that one. Though every time Pink Flamingos went to court for obscenity, it lost. Which does not surprise him. “If you’ve got jury duty at 10am and you have to watch that…”

Thou shalt steal

Stealing shots, stealing props, stealing farm animals. John considers the scenes in his films as a series of ‘little crimes’. Sometimes getting to and from locations would involve a little larceny. “This is what we used to do. Take cabs and run. We used to do it daily.” John later had his own show on Court TV called Til Death Do Us Part.

The great filmmaker, writer and raconteur, John Waters

Everybody wants to be an outsider today. I’m sick of being an outsider. I want to be an insider and an outlaw.

Thou shalt not kill, but maybe look like you did

Film critic Gene Siskel famously gave Pink Flamingos a savage zero star review and was convinced that people actually died on screen in the movie. John contests that no one was killed, but it was so poorly filmed that it may have looked like death occurred. However, a chicken definitely bit the dust.

Thou shalt not respect sacred institutions

“We opened all my movies in churches in the beginning. Churches helped out activists, I know it’s hard to imagine that today. I didn’t have to show the Priest the movie first. I think he was probably horrified when he saw it. But they thought, ‘this is the only way we’ll get these people in a church’.”

Thou shalt find disciples

Despite his early films being screened in churches (to avoid the censor board) rather than regular theatres, they were always successful and always sold out. “People did come. I had an audience right from the beginning.” John has said. And his fans tended to have something in common. “A hatred of authority and a good sense of humour. That’s the main thing that my audience shares.”

Thou shall co-opt thy neighbours lawn

John was shameless and fearless (and possibly a little clueless) when it came to picking locations. “There’s one scene [in Multiple Maniacs] where Divine is wearing a one-piece white bathing suit, covered in fake blood, and peers in the window of a suburban house carrying a big sledgehammer. That was just some neighbour of my parents. We didn’t ask them. They might have been sitting there eating breakfast. We didn’t ask people if we could shoot. We would just jump on their lawn and do stuff.”

Thou shalt be divine

Josef von Sternberg had Marlene Dietrich. Fellini had Giulietta Masina. John Waters had Divine. Divine appeared in many Waters’ epics and had just enjoyed commercial success with Hairspray in 1988 when he tragically died. “Divine in real life was the opposite [of his screen persona]. He was an effeminate nerd in high school who was beat up every day. The teachers hit him and were really mean to him. So he had this inner rage. He had the rage in there that I helped bring out.”

Thou shalt not stagnate

In 2014, John told The Dissolve, “I don’t have any needlepoint pillows with slogans on them, but if I did, it would be ‘Don’t Go Backward’.”