This week, we watched Pink Flamingos. This movie was different than any other movie I have ever seen to say the least. The movie follows along Divine who is going under the name Babe Johnson but she is known for being the filthiest human alive. She lives in this trailer with her mom, Edie, son, Crackers and friend, Cotton. But, Connie and Raymond Marble who capture women and impregnate them eventually selling their babies to lesbian couples, are not happy she got the title of this and try to take the title by sabotaging her life in many weird ways. Eventually Divine or Babs, catches them after they burn down her trailer and ends up murdering them. The scenes in the movie are something very different and definitely out there compared to something that you would see in the theaters today.

John Waters did literally everything for this movie minus acting. The movie was made on a budget of $10,000 and you could tell. One thing that I noticed when watching the movie is that many of the scenes were taken all in one shot. Many of the scenes started on Babs and then would pan to someone else without a cut or would zoom in and then out. There was also the scene such as when the trailer was burning. The camera would just pan to the three characters and then to the trailer. But, even if there was a small budget it didn’t really matter. They didn’t need anything real lavish if she was known as the filthiest human alive after all. It also didn’t matter because even with it not getting picked up by any companies it eventually did and made $7 million in the box office. I see why this would be a cult classic and would want to be something everyone would like to see at the time it came out. There were times when it did make me laugh but there were times that I was also very disturbed. I walked out of class that night honestly being lost for words as to what I saw, but now I understand why it is loved by so many people.

We also discussed transgression and freakery this week. You can relate The film Pink Flamingos very closely with this reading. With this, we talk about what is taboo or almost odd about a film that brings out the emotions in us. Like I said, I found this film very different and could say odd that left me without words. I was for sure feeling different emotions after this. At the time, I think this movie would have threatened some social norms but it was what the people wanted to see. We also talked about how it can all depend on the country too and its societal norms. Many countries may think that something that is taboo here may not be there or what is normal to us here may be very taboo there. This can also agree with I think on how you are raised. I know many people that would be appalled by what they saw. Something that is taboo may be different to many other people going back to depending on how they were raised or even their education on film.