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Gay History - May 17, 1972: John Water's "Pink Flamingos" Opens Starring: DIVINE! - WATCH THE FULL MOVIE!

Gay History – May 17, 1972: John Waters’ “Pink Flamingos” Opens Starring: DIVINE! – [WATCH The FULL Movie]

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On this day in 1972, John Waters’ outrageous movie Pink Flamingos opens in theaters.

Written, produced, filmed, and edited by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labeled the “Trash Trilogy”, which also includes Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977). 

Pink Flamingos stars the countercultural drag queen Divine (the late Glen Milstead) as a criminal living under the name of Babs Johnson, “the filthiest person alive” The film portrays her attempts to maintain her title against a rival couple who claim to be even filthier than her.

The movie was filmed in Waters’ hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, on a budget of only $10,000, which he raised by working odd jobs and borrowing money from friends. The cast and crew were mostly made up of Waters’ friends and associates, and many of the film’s scenes were improvised.

Upon its initial release, “Pink Flamingos” received mixed reviews and was heavily criticized for its explicit content and extreme shock value. However, it soon developed a cult following and became a staple of the midnight movie circuit, where it was screened in theaters around the world.

Displaying the tagline “An exercise in poor taste”,  Pink Flamingos is notorious for its “outrageousness”, nudity, profanity, and “pursuit of frivolity, scatology, sensationally [sic] and skewed epistemology.” As it features a “number of increasingly revolting scenes” that center on exhibitionism, voyeurism, sodomy, masturbation, gluttony, vomiting, rape, incest, murder, cannibalism, coprophagia, and foot fetishism, the film is considered a preliminary exponent of abject art.

In other words the perfect film!

Waters had planned for a sequel, titled Flamingos Forever. Troma Entertainment offered to finance the picture, but it was never made, as Divine refused to be involved, and in 1984, Edith Massey died.

When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy but has since become one of the most notorious films ever made and is rated #29 on the list of 50 Films to See Before You Die.

You can watch the full movie before you die below.

All hail John Waters and Divine!

WATCH: NBC’s Hairspray LIVE! Performs “You Can’t Stop The Beat” for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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Based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, “Hairspray Live!” takes place in 1962 Baltimore. Plump teenager Tracy Turnblad’s dream is to dance on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local TV program. When against all odds Tracy wins a role on the show, she becomes a celebrity overnight and meets a colorful array of characters, including the resident dreamboat, Link; the ambitious mean girl, Amber; an African-American boy she meets in detention, Seaweed; and his mother, Motormouth Maybelle, the owner of a local record store. Tracy’s mother is the indomitable Edna, and she eventually encourages Tracy on her campaign to integrate the all-white “Corny Collins Show.”

“Hairspray Live!” features an all-star cast including Harvey Fierstein, Jennifer Hudson, Kristin Chenoweth, Martin Short, Derek Hough, Dove Cameron, Garrett Clayton, Ariana Grande, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Ephraim Sykes, exciting newcomer Maddie Baillio and special guest stars Billy Eichner, Sean Hayes, Andrea Martin and Rosie O’Donnell.

“Hairspray Live!” will air from Los Angeles on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

 

Harvey Fierstein and Jennifer Hudson to Star in NBC’s ‘Hairspray Live’ – Video

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Harvey Fierstein and Jennifer Hudson to Star in NBC’s ‘Hairspray Live’

Both Jennifer Hudson and Harvey Fierstein have signed on to NBC’s “Hairspray Live!,” the network’s next live Broadway musical.

Hudson will play Motormouth Maybelle, while Fierstein will return to the role of Edna Turnblad, for which he won a Tony for in the Broadway stage version. He will also write the teleplay.

Based on the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, “Hairspray Live!” will follow the movie and Broadway show and  place in 1962 Baltimore. Teenager Tracy Turnblad’s dream is to dance on “The Corny Collins Show,” a local TV show, and she launches a campaign to integrate it.

“We are beyond thrilled with this incredibly talented duo of stars for ‘Hairspray Live!,’” said NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt. “Harvey Fierstein created the role of Edna Turnblad on Broadway in an indelible Tony-winning performance that demanded to be memorialized on film, and we’re happy he wanted to step into her shoes one last, unforgettable time. We’re also so grateful that the incomparable Jennifer Hudson will play Motormouth Maybelle and we know her rendition of ‘I Know Where I’ve Been’ will literally stop the show.”

No mention of who will be cast in the lead role of Tracey but longtime NYC activist and blogger Jeremy Hooper of Good As You mentioned on Twitter over the weekend that there was an open call taking place near where he lived and there was “spunk lined up around the block”.

 

Is Baltimore Set To Get An 8 Foot Tall Statue of Divine Complete With Bronze Dog Poop?

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Divine

The Baltimore Sun is reporting that an 8ft bronze statue of the late, great Divine might be coming to Baltimore with the blessing of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who “ looks forward to seeing more details on the proposal”

Via Flavorwire:

The corner of Read and Tyson Streets in Baltimore will forever bear the glorious ghost of an iconically filthy moment: Divine (aka Harris Glenn Milstead), as Babs Johnson in John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, asserting her status as the “Filthiest Person Alive” by watching as a dog poops, approaching the poop, and then eating the poop.Soon — Kickstarter gods willing — this moment will be commemorated with an eight-foot-tall monument at that very street corner. No, it’ll no longer be a ghost people step through unawares (incidentally, much like dog poop), but rather a gargantuan, unmissable work of art, homage, and filth. And apparently Baltimore’s mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, is completely down

The monument, which estimated costs is to be between $50,000 and $100,000, would rest on the side of a house at the corner of Read and Tyson streets, on the western fringe of Mount Vernon. The actual scene, according to those who were there, was shot on a lot alongside a house in the 800 block of Tyson St. The proposed site is actually across the street from the house, at a location (a blank wall) its designers thought would work better.

 

Iconic Gay Director John Waters on Caitlyn Jenner: ‘We Can’t Make Fun Of Her?’

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In an interview with the U.K. magazine The Spectatori iconic gay film director and screenwriter John Waters who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films like Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, and Female Trouble talked about the media’s treatment of Caitlyn Jenner and how he doesn’t understand why we can’t make fun of her:

‘The Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn thing is kind of old hat to me. I had a transgender woman in Pink Flamingos. She had breasts and a penis. She got the operation that week. That was radical to me then. Caitlyn’s a Republican, she’s on a reality show, and she’s a Kardashian. We can’t make fun of him or her?’

Testify John!

*If you happen to be. in the UK , John Waters’s exhibition ‘Beverly Hills John’ is at Sprüth Magers London until 15 August. A retrospective of his films will be showing at the BFI in September.