John Waters: Interviews

John Waters, an Appreciation

228 John Waters, an Appreciation Everett Lewis / 2011 Printed by permission of Everett Lewis, filmmaker and professor at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. When Mr. Waters began his life’s work, his views were not those of the mainstream. That was the point. But a very strange thing has happened during the course of Mr. Waters’ career. The mainstream has changed. It has begun to mirror the world of Mr. Waters. It’s a long way from Charo to Nirvana, pal. Who knew? From Church Basement to The Museum of Modern Art is a long trip. And the journey wasn’t exactly intentional. The work of Mr. Waters has both paralleled and quite probably encouraged a shift in the mainstream, a broadening of the possibilities of life as the twenty-first century unfolds. Strange as it would seem to the people in that church basement in 1965 watching the first of Mr. Waters’ films to screen, his attitudes about the world were or would become to be shared by many people. Even stranger was that the views of these people would gradually become the mainstream. Or, that his films and ideas would be celebrated as the Victorian cultural mores surrounding his early work gradually died out to be replaced by a less homogeneous, more heterogeneous, polymorphous, complex world view, fueled by the Internet and the rise of digital technology (and the concurrent collapse of the cultural hegemony of the three major networks and four or five movie studios and the system they fronted). A contemporary culture in which Mr. Waters’ work is seen as Mainstream. If Mr. Waters didn’t predict this shift, as an artist he sensed it, and his Work celebrates it. The only problem is, now that we have become Mr. Waters’ world (or his has become ours), and since his work has thrived on opposition, then where will his work go? How can he shock us if we have become shock- everett lewis / 2011 229 ing? If the boundaries between the “respectable” world and the “outlaw” world of his youth have merged and thus disappeared as he and his work have matured? (Reality TV, all those Housewives, it’s like a John Waters movie, only not as good . . .) If we are him, then what is he going to do to us now? In the articles and interviews in this book, many of the writers are amazed that Mr. Waters is sane, well dressed, pleasant, unpretentious, and extremely intelligent. (It doesn’t seem amazing to me, it seems obvious , but, you know, oh well . . . ), and this particular paradox, unimaginable when Mr. Waters started his career, will hopefully spark further imaginative and compelling (and hopefully ridiculous) Waters work for the future from this sane, well dressed, pleasant, unpretentious, and extremely intelligent artist. This page intentionally left blank ...