Pink Flamingos is a glorious, grotesque, hugely funny movie that remains at times unwatchable. The story centres around an incestuous family, headed by the incomparable Divine, that revel in their fame as being the filthiest family alive. The film catches up with them as an embittered couple, the Marbles, jealous of their fame, try to upstage them in their filthiness.
The film was obviously made on a low budget and the acting mirrors that, but once you are get by that, you are on a roller coaster of bad taste and very dark humour. There isn't one main character here that you would be proud to call a friend, yet for some reason, you do end up rooting for Divine and her familial cohorts. The Marbles are no slouch, it has to be said (they operate a particularly vicious baby selling ring), but what makes them the “baddies” is they have desires beyond their means. Divine IS the filthiest person alive, and safe in that knowledge, she is happy.
Divine is living under the pseudonym “Babs Johnson” with her egg-loving mother, Mama Eadie, delinquent son Crackers, and Cotton, a like minded companion whose simple pleasure is voyeurism. They live in a mobile home somewhere in the wilds of Baltimore (John Waters home town). The Marbles set out to destroy the tight knit family but come unstuck, as they must.
The film has a flowing narrative that doesn’t bear up under close scrutiny, but why scrutinise? As with a great many thing films, you take it with a pinch of salt. There are scenes which are hard to watch (splayed buttocks and a gaping anus is a bit much for this reviewer), but this seems to be exactly what Waters is looking for. Waters himself called the film an “exercise in poor taste”. In fact, these days you watch the film TO be shocked. That’s how extreme films work. And it IS extreme. But it also funny. And if you are watching a comedy, that’s what counts.