From ‘Pink Flamingos’ to ‘Role Models’

Anyone who has everfelt like a misfit, an outsider or a hopeless dweeb needs to adopt John Watersas his or her fairy godfather. Waters put himself on America’s reverse cultural map withPink Flamingos, in which his star,Divine, snacks on dog feces. He subsequently went on to more conventional famewith the movie and Broadway show Hairspray.In Role Models (Farrar, Straus, andGiroux) he has given us 10 essays featuringthe odd, phantasmagoric characters that light up his universe.

Waters’ two popfavorites, Johnny Mathis and Little Richard, could not be more opposite intheir images, yet both fit into his models of aesthetic and moral excellence.Mathis, who avoids publicity, has remained a genteel, romantic icon throughouthis long career, while Little Richard has been shocking parents since Ike waspresident. Waters celebrates their compulsion to create, which they wouldfollow whether they were rich and famous or not.

One of Waters’heroes, Bobby Garcia, lives in a run-down shack with a rooster and an appallingnumber of rats for roommates. His claim to fame is the creation of a large bodyof pornography featuring himself as the protagonist and handsome male Marinesas his leading men. In other, less gentle hands, the Bobby Garcia saga might beplayed for easy laughs, but that’s not Waters’ way. He portrays Garcia as arespectable if obsessed man on a mission, with an aesthetic vision worthy ofdeconstruction. He even understands Garcia’s simpatico ways with rats.

Waters says that hewould make a good advocate for the damned. Not only is he attracted to peoplewho walk on life’s dark side, but he is driven to know what makes them behavethe way they do. He brings compassion and empathy to the task. The people hecares about in his native Baltimoreand from his extensive travels are often not only the damned, but the redeemed damned. Waters keeps a to-do list, and one of his goals is to free Mansonfamily member Leslie Van Houten. He makes it clear that the 60-year-old VanHouten, whom he has known for 30 years, is light years away from being themurderer and cult member she was in 1969.

The closest Waterscomes to regret was for his movie MultipleManiacs, based loosely on the Manson family’s Tate/LaBianca murders. Heexpresses sorrow for his “flippant disregard for the terrible aftermath ofthese crimes.” What drove him was his insatiable curiosity about people. “Howhad these kids from backgrounds so similar to mine,” he wonders, “committed inreal life what we were acting for comedy in our film?”

The wrongheadedtransgression of his Manson movie notwithstanding, John Waters is, at heart, adecent, honorable man. Role Modelsclearly illustrates that you can be gloriously unique, hilarious and far fromwhat is called “normal” and still be manifestly worthy of respect.