What does it mean to be filthy in 2024? As we prepare to welcome legendary filmmaker John Waters to Provincetown Town Hall this July, my mind is preoccupied with this question. Waters’ filmic legacy is defined by an ethos of trashiness, crudeness — filth. And while the grotesque nature of these movies is no doubt entertaining, it is also laced with sharp sociopolitical meaning.
Pink Flamingos, arguably the film that set Waters’ legacy in motion, exemplifies this notion. Divine, in the leading role, proclaims to be the “filthiest” woman in the world, and butts heads with the Marbles family, who have attempted to usurp this title. In this sense, filthiness is portrayed as a seriously desirable quality, just as alluring as sex appeal or beauty (which Divine also tauts) — if not essentially one and the same.
But the film also openly exhibits contradictions to this worship of filth. While filth is at times celebrated in a sort of revolutionary way that reverses our usual conceptions about things we find “trashy” — it is also sometimes reviled in the usual conservative manner that one might approach it. For example, Divine shames Connie and Raymond Marble for their nefarious business scheme as well as their freakish relationship with each other. Both of these, on varying levels, constitute filthiness — but in this case they are looked down upon rather than admired.
And so, we ask, what really is filth? Filmmaker and scholar Anna Breckon says that “Filth specifies less the intrinsic quality of an object than it does a structural position: namely, a negative affective relation to what is normatively defined as the social good.” For conservative bigots, filth is queer and transgender people living their lives. For some members of the political left, filth is offensive jokes told by cancel-culture-crazed comedians. Everyone, on all sides of the political aisle, is having discussions about what is morally acceptable and what is downright trashy.
For Waters (although he often denies political motivations), filth is a rejection of anything and everything normative — a revolutionary refusal to conform. This too, is co-opted for political purposes by those who wish to portray themselves as rebellious or against the status quo — whether that be the infamously non-P.C. former president Trump, or young and anarchic left-wing radicals. We all seek out filth and edginess at the same time as we reject it.
Filth is at the center of our current digital media landscape too. One search on TikTok, the strangely controversial short-form video app with billions of downloads, will introduce you to the “Clean Girl Aesthetic” — a sort of style guide for young women centered around casual minimalist clothing and makeup with a matte, muted color palette that evokes a sense of relaxed seriousness, cleanliness, and visual purity. Despite this look reportedly being pioneered by women of color, its presence on the app and beyond has become largely centered around straight cisgender white women, leading many on the platform to criticize the trend.
Commentator Eliza Brooke has written extensively for Vox about the minimalist design trends of the post-recession era and how they express visually the ideology of neoliberalism which effectively asks individuals to bear the burden of economic downturn by making more “minimalist” lifestyle choices. “It’s impossible to separate the aesthetics of consumer goods from the economic circumstances under which they were created,” says Brooke, “The ways we adorn ourselves and our homes — and the ways brands dress themselves up to get our attention — speak to our personal and national relationships with money.” The fabled Clean Girl has become a political being, a girlboss-feminist fashionista, an embodiment of the aesthetics of wealth, assimilation, and capitalist exploitation — a far cry from 1970s Divine (who Waters explains was particularly revolutionary at a time when most drag queens were “squares”).
At the same time filthy queer cinema is in its moment right now. The last two years have seen the release of a number of films that have been applauded for their loud, messy, and intimate portrayal of queerness including Emma Seligman’s Bottoms and Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding. In many ways, the crude humor, occasionally-graphic imagery, and campy feel of films like these reverberate with the influence of underground LGBTQ+ filmmakers like Waters, as well as many of his contemporaries within the underground scene.
But the film climate has still changed a lot since the early seventies — heck, even the landscape of independent cinema in the late nineties feels like another world (where is the Watermelon Woman of 2024?) Bottoms for example (which, I should mention, is quite possibly my favorite film of 2023), has absolutely earned its R-rating as well as its popularity with young, queer moviegoers — but it still feels decidedly safe in both form and content in a way that is worth examining.
Nonetheless, these recent developments diverge significantly from the way queerness has been portrayed in mainstream media up until recently. Queer characters in film from the past couple decades have largely existed in narrative contexts that center nearly exclusively on their identity as a subject of oppression of one kind or another. Additionally, these characters – while complex – have seldom been allowed to be as utterly messy, flawed, and goofy as PJ and Josie in Bottoms or Lou in Love Lies Bleeding — or Divine/Babs Johnson in Pink Flamingos.
However, it’s a dangerous time to be filthy; to make people uncomfortable. I’m by no means one of these self-proclaimed “free speech warriors” who suggests that anybody should be able to say whatever offensive garbage they want without any consequences (that’s ridiculous) — but I do wonder if sometimes even the most enlightened among are made a little too nervous by the filth that courses through the arteries of contemporary art.
John Waters: Devil’s Advocate comes to Payomet on Thursday, July 25th — and I’m hoping it’ll be one trashy show.