Saturday, June 03, 2023
Radio
Sundays 8pm to 11pm on Radio 2
New Episodes at CBC Music
Need more Strombo Show? Head over to our page on CBC Music for new episodes, playlists and video extras.
John Waters has been offending audiences for as long as he's been making movies - and that's just the way likes it. In fact, John's quite proud of his unofficial title: 'The Pope of Trash.'
Back in the 1960s, John started making short, black and white films in his hometown of Baltimore. For actors, John used his friends, including a heavy-set drag queen named Divine. She would turn out to be John's on-screen muse, and in 1972, she starred in John's cult classic, 'Pink Flamingos.' John's characters competed to be called the "filthiest person alive," and the shocking results - including a scene of Diving eating actual dog feces - made John an underground hero.
John followed 'Pink Flamingos' with a series of equally twisted films, but in 1988, something truly bizarre happened: John Waters wrote and directed a mainstream hit. His movie-musical, "Hairspray", tackled race relations with a healthy dose of 50s pop culture nostalgia. 'Hairspray' proved that John could appeal to a broad audience - in 2002, Hairspray was adapted to a Broadway musical, and in 2007, it got a big Hollywood remake (who could forget John Travolta in that fat suit?)
But John never abandoned his filthy roots, and he's never stopped making unconventional movies, including 'Pecker,' 'Cecil B. Demented,' and his most recent feature, 'A Dirty Shame,' released in 2004.
Now, John's written a book called 'Role Models', which profiles some of the people responsible for his delightfully dirty mind.
@TheStromboShow