When John Waters' "Pink Flamingos" (1972) first came out, Roger Ebert said that its vulgar depravity, filmed with such pop whimsy, defied conventional criticism. It wasn't a movie; it was a foreign object unto itself.
For those of you who have seen "Pink Flamingos," you can probably sympathize. For those of you who haven't, Ebert's sidestep might seem like a critical cop-out.
Well, Ebert has another chance at vindication, for John Waters has struck again with "A Dirty Shame," his latest foray into pushing the bounds of good taste as far as he possibly can.
The movie is about sex addicts taking over a Baltimore suburb in a style similar to a zombie B-movie, but infinitely grosser. For these are not the safe, cuddly sex addicts of Playboy or Penthouse, the kind that people might not mind taking over the town. Oh no -- there is a middle aged man with a fetish for acting like a baby; a teen who becomes sexually obsessed with dirt; and a family of very large, very hairy homoerotic men who like to growl and call themselves bears. Salivating over these people would be out of the question.
Tracey Ullman plays Sylvia Stickles, the owner of a convenience store who has grown weary of sexual encounters with her husband Vaughn (Chris Isaac), who works at the store along with Sylvia's mother, Big Ethel (Suzanne Shepard).
Incidentally, Big Ethel is not big. But what are big are the gargantuan breasts of the Stickles' daughter, Caprice, also known as Ursula Udders (Selma Blair). Sylvia and Vaughn lock Caprice in her room due to her rampant sex addiction to exhibitionism. Caprice's scientifically, or in this case, digitally enhanced mammaries are so stupefyingly large that it wouldn't be surprising if they caused traffic accidents. I'm sorry officer; her boobs were just too big.
Big Ethel becomes concerned that the town is being over-run with perverts like the voyeurs who try to cop a leer at Caprice. She takes a stand and organizes the level-headed Baltimore citizens in order to get rid of the sex addicts. In turn, the sex addicts are taken under the wing of a sexual messiah named Ray-Ray, played rather terribly by Johnny Knoxville. Ray-Ray is constantly on the lookout for new addicts to add to his ranks.
Now I know what you're thinking: this all seems pretty straightforward so far. Well here's where it gets weird: a person becomes a sex addict from an accidental concussion to the head.
Sure, it's been noted that personality changes occur after severe brain damage (the first documented case was when a mine worker started spitting out obscenities at his loved ones) -- but "Dirty Shame" puts a new, insane spin on that idea. Sylvia's brain gets mangled early in the film, and that's when everything starts to get out of control -- if it was ever in control to begin with.
At times I wasn't sure if I was laughing with<$> or at<$> "A Dirty Shame." Tracey Ullman's performance is fabulous, and there are moments so outlandishly raunchy, I found myself, a liberal-minded and might I add slightly immature 21 year old guy, squirming happily along with Waters' depravity. But the majority of the film left me feeling either confused, dirty, or a little queasy.
Look at a picture of John Waters. Sure, it takes a degree of neuroticism to maintain that pencil thin mustache, but the face reveals none of the depravity that is rampant in the film. Completely bizarre, depraved, inane, outrageous, and in no good taste most of the essential plot questions are clearly outlined -- except why Waters put on this degenerative show to begin with.
If Waters made the film as a means to speak out against a society that has become prudish, grossing out the audience to the point of nausea is no way to make any kind of a case.
Maybe he's testing the limits of the American audience in some kind of movement to take lude to the extreme. Or maybe it's a stab at pointing out the world's internal meaninglessness. But then, any attempt to scratch under the surface of this movie seems utterly ridiculous. Whatever it is, it is definitely like nothing else.
