The joys of being a pervert

So I went to see A Dirty Shame today. I wanted to see it so badly, I actually ventured into an ordinary theater to see it. (Usually, I pretty much only go to the Alamo Drafthouse, because they sell beer cheaper than a small coke at a regular movie theater. If I'm paying that much money for a drink, it better be alcoholic.) There is no way this will be a sober, well-reasoned review as I love John Waters and think everything he touches turns to gold.

As I stated earlier, it's because he actually bothers to satirize the people who actually deserve it, taking on homophobes, misogynists, uptight middle class assholes and everyone else who are the real problems in our society. And he's funny.

Waters basically took a list of every goofy perversion he's ever heard of and stuffed his movie with it. Kinkiness is a great topic for him, because very few things can get people uptight faster than the fact that other people do weird things in bed. But it's a leap of logic to go from not liking what others do and actually trying to stop them.

Waters takes these kinds of tensions and exagerrates them to the heights of absurdity. The censorious types are all shrill and seem even more perverse than the happy perverts. (Mink Stole, as one of the "neuters", goes off on a monologue about getting your virginity back through surgery.) It fits nicely into Waters' lifelong habit of writing stories where outcasts make their own space where they can be free of oppression from those who think that weird is the same thing as wicked.

And it was pretty funny watching my boyfriend chortle evilly throughout. He thinks that the world is stuffed full of perverts who just won't admit it, and therefore a movie where the perverts come out and take over the streets fits his worldview just fine. It's worth the price of the ticket just to see Patty Hearst humping some dude's leg. Highly recommended.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, it's NC-17. Probably in part because it's all about sex, but mostly because it shows penis. Waters is a feminist filmmaker in his own fucked-up way--until recently, every single movie he made had a female protagonist. Actually, only Pecker had a male protagonist. In most Waters movies, men are pretty much just sex objects. This movie is no exception. Tracy Ullman is married to Chris Issak (*swoon*) and falls in with bad boy Johnny Knoxville, who I now realize is pretty hot, too. And when everyone falls down to worship Ullman's cunt, it's just good dirty fun and not some deep statement.

Also, a really funny interview to read. They talk sex with John Waters, but they talk politics, too. Great quotes I have to steal:

And I'm so excited about this election. It's going to be a complete tie. It will come down to one vote, and then there'll be anarchy. No one's giving in this time.

*snort*

As much as I hate Bush, certain liberals have this idea that they're the only person in the world that has someone in bed with them. I just want to say, "Would you fucking vote and shut up?" Or do something. Go out in the streets. Or you know, be something. I'm voting for Kerry's wife. I love her.