"An exercise in poor taste"

The king and queen of bad taste, are in their kingdom of filth inhabited by pink flamingos.
Their reign, "Pink Flamingos", is a place so outrageous, absurd, disturbing to be a masterpiece, nust see, without asking too many questions.
John Waters and Divine are the protagonists of an kitsch explosion, an insult to the cinema and to the audience who can be compared to punk, whose official explosion, however, comes a few years later. A link more mental than historical, more than intent than labels, but the meaning is more or less the same, namely to destroy all the existing schemes, go beyond and show the human being as it is, so to say without skin, with giblets in plain view.
John Waters and Divine friend from long time succeed (fucking) good in this thing. The two, arrive in "Pink Flamingos" after several short films and a few, outrageous, feature film as "World Trasho" and "Multiple Maniacs".
Is with this "Pink Flamingos", however, that they enter in the history, being, as they say, in the right place at the right time, with "noir" if analyzed and out of context and meaning is a huge pile of garbage. To give it a place, a context, however, is what we said at the beginning: a masterpiece of independent cinema, loved and appreciated, for once, since its realease. Politically correct of course excluded.
The vision is certainly not easy and you should far from meals, you will see in the case, a film apparently shot with very few resources (among other only on weekends), with an unsteady hand and with means to say the least amateur . A story that oozes filth if only for the location, the suburbs of Baltimore, where the main character lives in a caravan
her name is Babs Johnson and is played by Divine. Little break to talk about Divine, recognized worldwide as a gay icon. Is Required.
Harris Glenn Milstead was born in 1945 into a middle-class conservative family in Maryland. He turns out to be homosexual in teens and discovers a passion for transvestism. Marginalized, teased, even for his impressive size, he knows well soon David Lochary and especially John Waters with whom he attended the movement of "underground" in Baltimore. We are in the early part of the sixties, they are all very young, but they have clear ideas, especially Waters, who has the ambition to become a director, to create something never seen before. Harris Glenn Milstead becomes "Divine" a nickname given to her by the Waters and becomes the star of "Dreamlanders" a group formed by Waters, including David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole and Pat Moran, who shot short in the week -end.
So film after film, garbage, after garbage athe fame of Divine grows hand in hand with that of Waters. The most famous drag queen in the world, the muse of the director continues her career even after the peak of this film, ending tragically in 1988, shortly after the release of "Hairspray" (the film remade in the new millennium with John Travolta) due to a heart attack. An end that inevitably marks the career of Waters. This is the life in short of the legendary Divine, but we are here for "Pink Flamingos" and then we go back this dirty film.
Babs Jonhson is famous throughout the world as "The Filthiest Person". She lives in a caravan, as we have said, in the company of his mother, who only eats eggs and going all the time in a box, the son zoophiles and a voyeur friend of him. The happy family is happy among coprofagy, cannibalism, incest, theft, and apparently some murders .

This fame annoys the Marbles a punk couple that about crap is not badly.
They love to kidnap and segregate girls for get them pregnant and sell babies to lesbian couples.
Jealous of Babs they try in every way to eliminate she using methods very stately.
They send a spy to find Babs, send police to the birthday party and set fire to the caravan. The blonde fat, however cry "My whole life is devoted to the filth!" and do not leave absolutely overwhelming.


The irony background that pervades the film lightens, fortunately, the context and because of that some scenes become exquisitely (un)forgettable. Crackers, the son of Babs, has sex with a spy of Marbles, getting in the way, it is appropriate to say, a chicken. Who loses his head. Physically. The patrol arrives at the party of Babs is killed and eaten and birthday presents, rech the highest with the head of a pork. We can not forget a guest who entertains everyone showing his muscle elasticity. What is the muscle we can't say but the character is called "Singing Asshole". 
Finally Babs and Crackers break into house Marbles and lick everything that later comes alive. And the final scene is said to be true.
A successful game of the good Waters, who Johnny Depp defined romantically as a "director outlaw," a phrase more apt than ever. Excellent is also the soundtrack that uses more or less known songs of the 50s. A choice a bit 'style, but also due to the fact that the records were in the house of Waters.

Fact Sheet


Original title: Pink Flamingos

Alternative Titles: Pink Flamingos (Italy), John Waters' Pink Flamingos (USA), Rózsaszín flamingók (Hungary), Ruzicasti Flamingosi (Serbia)

Country: USA
Year of Release: 1972
Duration: 93 '
Directed by: John Waters
Starring: Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Edith Massey, Paul Swift
Studio: -