john@semi.harris.com (John M. Blasik) (07/06/90)
Transmitted via USENET with permission from The Orlando Sentinel
Copyright 1990 Sentinel Communications Company
From The Orlando Sentinel "The best newspaper in Florida"
Friday, June 29, 1990 PAGE 1
`Flamingo' flap tickles producer pink
By Lauren Ritchie and Bob Levenson
OF THE SENTINEL STAFF
_Pink Flamingos_ is a disgusting movie, according to straight-faces
vice agents of the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation. It's
revolting, offensive, obscene.
John Waters, the producer, agrees. He gleefully promotes the
17-year-old Trash cult film starring a 300-pound bald loudmouth in
drag as the _most_ disgusting movie ever made. But it's not obscene,
he said.
"People wish my characters would put their clothes back on," Waters
said from his home in Baltimore. "It's a comedy."
_Pink Flamingos_, which has been shown nationwide, including Orlando
and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, now is considered a classic
Trash film. For the first time anywhere, an Orange County grand jury
has ruled the movie obscene.
At the request of MBI agents, grand jurors on Monday indicted an
Orange County video store owner on charges of obscenity for renting
_Ping Flamingos_ to a 14-year-old police Explorer.
"Isn't that ridiculous?" Waters said. "Nothing surprises me from
Florida these days. I don't want to go near Florida. You electrocute
people at an alarming rate. You ban rap records. What's the matter
with that state?"
Waters led the move 20 years ago to create Trash movies that have
since become cult films with college students and anyone with a warped
sense of humor. The movies generally are in bad taste, satirical and
campy and feature B-grade actors. His more mainstream movies include
_Cry-Baby_, _Hairspray_, and _Polyester_.
He is a sought-after lecturer on Trash films and has spoken and shown
some of his six Trash movies at universities across Florida.
_Pink Flamingos_ has been shown around the world. It played in
Orlando most recently about five years ago.
MBI agents and the couple who complained about the film to them
weren't amused by the movie.
The movie is a series of sophomoric attempts at grossing out the
audience, but there is little nudity.
The plot features the late female impersonator Divine as Babs Johnson.
Babs lives in a trailer with her demented mother, Mamma Edie, who has
an egg fixation, her moronic son Crackers and a pretty woman named
Cotton.
Divine (sic) is acknowledged as "the filthiest person in the world,"
which enrages the neighbors, Raymond and Connie Marble, who try to lay
claim to the title.
The Marbles think they can claim the distinction without trouble
because they invest in pornography, sell heroin in elementary schools,
kidnap young women and allow their butler to forcibly impregnate them
and sell the women's babies.
The Marbles challenge Divine (sic). What follows is a contest in
revulsion.
There is sex involving a dying chicken between two bodies. ("It was
totally fake. Afterward, we cooked the chicken and ate it," Waters
joked.)
The butler gets castrated. Police are killed and eaten. Babies are
sold. There is Divine (sic) eating dog excrement.
An Orlando couple, professionals in their 20s, rented _Pink Flamingos_
several weeks ago because they had seen more recent, less outrageous,
films by Waters.
They got a big surprise. The couple complained to MBI that the movie
shouldn't be in the section of the store that is open to minors.
"We watched half of it and said it was enough", said the husband, who
asked not to be identified because he feared harassment.
Waters said lots of people complain about his movies.
"They have the absolute right not to like my movies. It's as American
as the right to show them," he said.
MBI sent a 14-year-old girl into American Video Network at 2053
American Blvd. to rent the movie after the complaint. They showed it
to Orange Circuit Judge Bernard Muszynski who ruled it could be
obscene. The MBI then showed it to the grand jury, which indicted the
store owner Steve Zlatkiss on two charges. The most serious was a
felony, distribution of obscene material to minors.
_Pink Flamingos_ is an unrated movie, like hundreds of others,
including most foreign movies, children's films and most classics.
Zlatkiss pulled the movie off the shelf, as did at least one other
Orlando video store. Several video store owners said Thursday they
wouldn't remove the unrated movies unless a trial jury rules _Pink
Flamingos_ obscene.
"MBI ought to use tax dollars to fight real crime, because we have
plenty of it," said Jane Gerhadt, a store owner
Waters said he was sorry for the store owner who was arrested.
"All this does for me is make my lecture fee go up. Thanks for the
publicity on a 20-year-old film people were starting to forget in the
first place," Waters said.
--
john@semi.harris.combryan@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (07/10/90)
In article <1990Jul6.104902.5993@eddie.mit.edu>, john@semi.harris.com (John M. Blasik) writes: ... > MBI sent a 14-year-old girl into American Video Network at 2053 > American Blvd. to rent the movie after the complaint. They showed it > to Orange Circuit Judge Bernard Muszynski who ruled it could be > obscene. The MBI then showed it to the grand jury, which indicted the > store owner Steve Zlatkiss on two charges. The most serious was a > felony, distribution of obscene material to minors. ... > "MBI ought to use tax dollars to fight real crime, because we have > plenty of it," said Jane Gerhadt, a store owner I guess I don't understand why the people who were offended to begin with didn't complain to the store rather than to MBI. I'm no great champion of free enterprise, but it seems like the best place to hit a store would be some kind of boycott rather than a bunch of stupid legal action. I'm also betting that they won't get far with the case. If the Miller v. California standards hold, the prosecution will have a hard time proving _PF_ is obscene when MOMA owns a copy of it. > "All this does for me is make my lecture fee go up. Thanks for the > publicity on a 20-year-old film people were starting to forget in the > first place," Waters said. Waters was here in Lawrence just prior to the release of _Hairspray_. I went to pick him up at the airport and spent some time with him before introducing his lecture. He was amusing, but didn't contribute anything earth-shattering in his lecture. He wrote an essay on his battles with the Maryland Censor Board, which is quite funny, certainly worth a read. I believe it's in _Shock Value_, but it might be in _Crackpot_. Both books are worth reading. And for the real hard-core Waters buff, he's published an anthology of three screenplays as well. - Bryan
Steve Baumgarten <baumgart@esquire.dpw.com> (07/13/90)
In article <24878.26948a05@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, bryan@kuhub writes: >In article <1990Jul6.104902.5993@eddie.mit.edu>, john@semi.harris.com (John M. Blasik) writes: >... >> MBI sent a 14-year-old girl into American Video Network at 2053 >> American Blvd. to rent the movie after the complaint. They showed it >> to Orange Circuit Judge Bernard Muszynski who ruled it could be >> obscene. The MBI then showed it to the grand jury, which indicted the >> store owner Steve Zlatkiss on two charges. The most serious was a >> felony, distribution of obscene material to minors. >... >> "MBI ought to use tax dollars to fight real crime, because we have >> plenty of it," said Jane Gerhadt, a store owner > >I guess I don't understand why the people who were offended to begin >with didn't complain to the store rather than to MBI. I'm no great >champion of free enterprise, but it seems like the best place to hit a >store would be some kind of boycott rather than a bunch of stupid >legal action. Complaining to the store doesn't get the film suppressed, which is their ultimate goal. Even chains like Blockbusters allow their stores quite a bit of leeway in deciding which films to carry. >I'm also betting that they won't get far with the case. If the Miller >v. California standards hold, the prosecution will have a hard time >proving _PF_ is obscene when MOMA owns a copy of it. It may have more to do with the fact that the film has been out for so long, and no one has raised this issue until now. Obscenity tests are based on "community standards", which makes a certain amount of sense, since what's appropriate for Times Square almost certainly isn't appropriate for Anytown, USA. Certainly with the recent flap about the Mapplethorpe exhibition, the fact that a museum owns or displays a work of art does not necessarily entitle that work to extra protection. Which is why certain museums went to great lengths to keep the most explicit works in a separate, "X-rated" area. The profoundly ironic parallel to those little curtains you see in video stores didn't faze museum management in the least; what do they care that they are tacitly admitting that the works on display are porn... being almost entirely publicly funded, they're just hoping that things will blow over soon. Last, the coda to all this is, as always, that by raising the issue in the first place, MBI is certainly going to get more people to see PF this year than in possibly the rest of the decade had they just let things be. Why these folks can't learn from experience is a mystery; with the results of the recent assault on 2 Live Crew still fresh in their minds (double platinum album and climbing), you'd think that they would make the connection between attempted suppression and a tremendous surge in popularity. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." baumgart@esquire.dpw.com | cmcl2!esquire!baumgart | - David Letterman