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 SOAPBOX: You Need A Little Corrupting
When people talk about my bad taste, they talk about the joyous way I mock what’s good and what’s bad. I do a lot of that on my show, John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You. I use “corrupt” in the good sense of the word. I hope to be corrupted every day of my life! So far today I haven’t, but I’m going to dinner with an insane judge, so maybe that’ll happen tonight. Corrupting, artistically, means if you only like formulistic gay movies, tune in to this and hopefully I’ll corrupt you a little bit! To make you think gaily incorrectly sometimes, to make you think outside whatever rules your minority has you trapped in!
I invite people into my house on the show. I just have one rule: NO STEALING! I used to. I went to a reception for Douglas Sirk in a person’s home. They had all these really rare Douglas Sirk books on the coffee table. I just picked one up and said to Douglas Sirk, would you sign this to me, “To John Waters”? Then I stole it. Ten years later, a press agent I had said, “You stole my book right from my house. I saw you do it.” I was mortified because I knew it was true! I still have that book! I never gave it back. How could I? It was addressed to me! That book’s worth a fortune now.
I wanted intelligent movies on my show that pushed the boundaries for all outsider behavior, not just gay behavior. I don’t collect movies. I don’t buy DVDs. But if I did, these would be among the few I would own.
There isn’t one movie that all gay men should see, because gay men are like all men—they each have completely different taste. I, myself, don’t think like all gay men! I’m not sure every gay man is going to love Clean-Shaven: a minimalist, horrifying movie about a schizophrenic, but I think some gay men who are whining about the problems of being gay should see this to realize, you know what? You don’t have problems! Try being a schizophrenic! Cute doesn’t count there!
In Who Killed Pasolini? I love Pasolini. I understand why he picked up that hustler. All he knew were smart people. Maybe he felt like not talking about literature in bed for once! I taught in prisons for a long time. I am sympathetic to deviants and outsiders’ extreme positions on things. Baxter—a movie about what is it like to be a dog? It’s an S&M world. I’m not usually a big animal movie lover. I’d like to see Baxter attack March of the Penguins!
I use movies to test first dates. I used to take guys to see Boom. If you didn’t like it, I couldn’t possibly sleep with you. You wouldn’t want to sleep with me, maybe, if you saw it. I think Freeway is a good date movie—it’s crazy, it’s rude, but it’s funny and Reese plays a hillbilly monster! Certainly I wouldn’t take someone to see Criminal Lovers...well, actually, I might.
I hate it when moviegoers go “awww!” That means I’ve seen a moment that makes me want to rip the seats up. What censor do I call to report heartwarming scenes?
I never see anyone making out in theaters anymore. Maybe it’s the movies I pick, like when I saw Irreversible. I think I saw someone jerking off. It’s the one movie you pray isn’t turning anyone on. It added to the horror. Now with Fuego, you would hope people would jerk off. Here’s a movie that was made for that—it was a sexploitation movie—but it’s hard to imagine. Laughing and masturbation don’t usually go hand in hand. Who laughs when they jerk off? That’s why I like Fuego. It’s a movie that makes you want to jerk off and laugh.
It’s hard to offend me. What does offend me are stupid, overproduced Hollywood movies that are so market-tested that they’re instantly forgotten in two weeks. Even though this is the biggest audience many of these movies I’m showing have ever had, there’s a reason why they’ve lasted. The films are the whole point of my show—extreme, intelligent movies that will push you closer to the edge of cinema insanity. Come over and watch ’em, but remember: NO STEALING!
Watch John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You on here! TV.
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