John Waters has been called many things: the king of camp, the Pope of trash, obscene. But one thing he can’t be called is boring.
The trailblazing filmmaker behind the cult classics Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Serial Mom is continuing to push the bounds of art in his touring comedy show Let’s Take Over the World! On Friday, he’ll bring his singular voice and twisted wit to Iowa City’s Englert Theatre to deliver what he lovingly calls a “vermin sermon.”
“I'm a carny. Vaudeville is what I do for a living,” Waters said. “I rewrite my show once a year, completely, 100% new… and now it's become a crackpot religion. I almost think of it as a semi-religious service for the demented.”
Throughout his decades-long film career, beginning in the 1960s, Waters has honed the craft of writing, directing and acting. But he has also made a name for himself in the literary world, having authored eight books and numerous spoken-word shows. As a returning guest to the Englert stage, Waters said he’s looking forward to coming back to the “writer-friendly town” of Iowa City.
Politics, humor and kissing babies
Although he has no plans of launching a presidential campaign while in Iowa, Waters admits his show is political — and full of ideas that the Democratic Party could use, if they so choose.
“My last show was called Going to Extremes; well, it's gone even beyond that now,” Waters said. “So, we have to take over, but we have to do it with humor. That's the way you win everything. Humor is political. It's your armor, it's how you fight, it's how you win and it's how you change people's minds.”
In the midst of today’s highly polarized political climate, Waters says he feels stuck in the middle of a two-party system that’s driving him mad.
“I am now radically in the middle for the first time ever,” he said. “That's what I think our slogan should be to win: We're radically in the middle for the first time. Because I can't stand the left or the right.”
Likening himself to a politician who has to sell himself to voters, Waters views his shows as a way to sell his career to new generations of fans.
“I’ve kissed babies, even,” Waters joked (I think). “Weird ones — they always give me weird, ugly babies to kiss, and I'm very accepting.”
Turning bad taste into an art form
From an early age, Waters knew he wanted to be in show business. At just 12 years old, he launched a puppet show enterprise in Baltimore and put on weekly performances at other children’s birthday parties.
As the years when on, his knack for orchestrating scenes transitioned to cinema. Soon after his first short film in 1964, he assembled a troupe of regular collaborators, and thus a new era of bad taste was born.
“I was raised in the tyranny of good taste from my parents, but thank God because you can't break the rules with style unless you know the rules,” Waters said. “I still believe in a lot of that stuff. That's why in Serial Mom I had somebody die because they wear white shoes after Labor Day.”
Even though the film industry has changed — Waters stressed that “the movie business that I know is over” — he still sees plenty of opportunities for young filmmakers to challenge older generations like he did.
“That is youth's duty, to have to come up with things that are going to get on the generation before theirs’ nerves and surprise them and go further than they do,” he said.
With the wisdom of 80 years, Waters offers two pieces of advice to anyone starting a career in the arts.
“First of all, never call yourself an artist,” he said. “When people say to me, ‘I'm an artist,’ I always silently think, ‘I'll be the judge of that; or, better yet, history will be the judge of that, not you.’ The other thing is, if you think you should cut something and it's too long, it always is. Cut it.”
And with that — cut!
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The Englert Theatre is a sponsor of Iowa Public Radio.
