Pink Flamingos

Pink Flamingos is a 1972 Exploitation/Comedy/Indie film directed by John Waters and starring Divine. It is John Waters' first entry in the trash Trilogy, and his 3rd full length film overall. The film has since been remastered in 1997 for the Special 25th anniversary of the movie.
== Plot ==
The notorious criminal Divine lives under the pseudonym "Babs Johnson" with her mentally-ill mother Edie, delinquent son Crackers, and traveling companion Cotton. They share a trailer on the outskirts of Phoenix, Maryland, next to a gazing ball and a pair of plastic pink flamingos. After learning that Divine has been named "the filthiest person alive" by a tabloid paper, jealous rivals Connie and Raymond Marble attempt to usurp her title.
The Marbles run a black market baby ring: they kidnap young women, have them impregnated by their manservant Channing, and sell the babies to lesbian couples. The proceeds are used to finance pornography shops and a network of dealers selling heroin in inner-city elementary schools. Raymond also earns money by exposing himself – with a large kielbasa sausage or turkey neck tied to his penis – to women and stealing their purses when they flee. One of Raymond's would-be targets, a transgender woman who has not completed gender reassignment surgery, thwarts his scheme by exposing her breast, penis, and scrotum, causing Raymond to flee in shock.
The Marbles enlist a spy, Cookie, to gather information about Divine by dating Crackers. In one of the film's most infamous scenes, Cookie gets raped by Crackers while crushing a live chicken between them as Cotton looks on through a window. Cookie then informs the Marbles about Babs' real identity, her whereabouts, and her family – as well as her upcoming birthday party.
The Marbles send a box of human feces to Divine as a birthday present with a card addressing her as "Fatso" and proclaiming themselves "the filthiest people alive". Worried that her title has been seized, Divine declares that whoever sent the package must die. While the Marbles are gone, Channing dresses in Connie's clothes and imitates his employers' overheard conversations. When the Marbles return home, they are outraged to find Channing mocking them, so they fire him and lock him in a closet.
The Marbles arrive at the trailer to spy on Divine's birthday party. Her birthday gifts include poppers, fake vomit, lice shampoo, a pig's head, and a meat cleaver. Entertainers include a topless woman with a snake act and a contortionist who flexes his prolapsed anus in rhythm to the song "Surfin' Bird". The Egg Man, who delivers eggs to Edie daily, confesses his love for her and proposes marriage. She accepts his proposal and he carts her off in a wheelbarrow. Disgusted by the outrageous party, the Marbles call the police, but this backfires when Divine and her guests ambush the officers, hack up their bodies with the meat cleaver, and eat them.
Divine and Crackers head to the Marbles' house, where they lick and rub the furniture, which excites them so much that Divine fellates Crackers. They find Channing and discover two pregnant women held captive in the basement. After Divine and Crackers free the women with a large knife, the women use the knife to emasculate Channing.
The Marbles burn Divine's beloved trailer to the ground; when they return home, their furniture – cursed by being licked by Divine and Crackers – "rejects" them: when they try to sit down, the cushions fly up and throw them to the floor. They also find that Channing has bled to death from his emasculation and the two girls have escaped.
After finding the remains of their burned-out trailer, Divine and Crackers return to the Marbles' home, kidnap them at gunpoint, and bring them to the arson site. Divine calls the local tabloid media to witness the Marbles' trial and execution. Divine holds a kangaroo court and convicts the bound-and-gagged Marbles of "first-degree stupidity" and "assholism". Cotton and Crackers recommend a sentence of execution, so the Marbles are tied to a tree, coated in tar and feathers, and shot in the head by Divine.
Divine, Crackers, and Cotton enthusiastically decide to move to Boise, Idaho. Spotting a small dog defecating on the sidewalk, Divine scoops up the feces with her hand and puts them in her mouth – proving, as the voice-over narration by Waters states, that Divine is "not only the filthiest person in the world, but she is also the filthiest actress in the world".
== Controversy ==
Displaying the tagline "An exercise in poor taste", Pink Flamingos is notorious for its "outrageousness", nudity, profanity, and "pursuit of frivolity, scatology, sensationology [sic] and skewed epistemology". It features a "number of increasingly revolting scenes" that center on exhibitionism, voyeurism, sodomy, masturbation, gluttony, vomiting, rape, incest, murder, cannibalism, castration, foot fetishism, and concludes, to the accompaniment of "How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?", with Divine's consumption of dog feces – "The real thing!" narrator Waters assures us. The film is considered a preliminary exponent of abject art.
The film, at first semi-clandestine, has received a warm reception from film critics and, despite being banned in several countries, became a cult film in subsequent decades. In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The film was initially banned in Switzerland and Australia, as well as in some provinces in Canada and Norway. The film was eventually released uncut on VHS in Australia in 1984 with an X rating, but distribution of the video has since been discontinued. The 1997 version was cut by the distributor to achieve an R18+ after it was also refused classification. No submissions of the film have been made since, but it has been said that one of the reasons for which it was banned (as a film showing actual sexual activity cannot be rated X in Australia if it also features violence, so the highest a film such as Pink Flamingos could be rated is R18+) would now not apply, given that the depiction of actual sex was passed within the R18+ rating for Romance in 1999, two years following Pink Flamingos' re-release.
Category:Films
Category:1972 films
Category:1970s films
Category:American films
Category:New Line Cinema films
Category:Films directed by John Waters