1974’s Female Trouble is another film that deliberately sets out to be provocative and is my first taste of the works of legendary director John Waters, infamous provocateur of bad taste. I’ve heard loads about Waters’ work over the years yet somehow have never managed to watch any of his films. If Female Trouble is emblematic of the rest of his cinematic oeuvre then I don’t think I’m a fan, as I really don’t care for it at all. I can see what Waters was going for here - it’s a film that’s desperate to incite a reaction, stacked top to bottom with outsiders, freaks, weirdos and some truly obnoxious people. To me it feels like being stuck on the last train home, packed full of drunk people imbeciles - it’s loud, garish and I find it pretty impossible to actually enjoy. I totally expect that Waters and his legion of fans would likely find me prudish and square for disliking this one but I have to be honest, it really isn’t my cup of eggnog.
This one is a carnival of chaos, telling the tale of an overweight, trouble-making young woman named Dawn (Divine) who runs away from home, falls pregnant, gives birth to a seriously unpleasant child, then embarks on a zany life of violent crime. This one was recommended on a few lists of ‘alternative’ Christmas movies but watching it, I quickly realise that it’s only really Christmassy and festive during the opening scenes set during the holiday season of 1960 that act as catalyst for Dawn’s bonkers life of misbehaviour. It’s a strange, loud, garish film that’s considered a cult classic, though for me it’s a tedious slog. It is notable for starring Waters’ ‘muse’ Divine (a 300 pound gay transvestite male, famous for eating an actual poop in Waters’ earlier film Pink Flamingos) as female Dawn. Waters is playing around with conventions here, though it must be noted that Divine, who made some seriously weird films, never considered himself transsexual.
On Christmas morning, delinquent teen Dawn - who blatantly wants to rebel against just about everything - is expecting a pair of “cha cha heels” but when she doesn’t get them, she kicks off big time. The beehived brat throws a monumental meltdown, telling mom and dad to go fuck themselves, toppling the tree on top of her mother before running away. She hitches a ride with some creep mechanic who then takes her to the woods and bones her on a dirty old mattress…on Christmas morning. It’s a bloody horrible scene to watch with lots of grunting, shouting and swearing, made all the stranger because the mechanic also appears to be played by Divine. Ho ho ho.
This sets the scene for the rest of this none-more-trashy, nightmarish picture. Dawn gets preggers, gives birth to a brat called Taffy (Mink Stole) and ends up in an unhappy marriage with a sleazy hairdresser named Gater (Michael Potter). For reasons too tedious to mention, she then keeps Gater’s grotesque, plump “fag hag” Aunt Ida (Edith Massey) locked up in a bird cage before eventually chopping the woman’s arm off.
The super-camp owners of Gater’s salon, Donna (Mary Vivian Pearce) and Donald Dasher (David Lochary) then decide, for some insane reason, that Dawn is the perfect role model for all that is beautiful and end up sponsoring her crazy, overblown nightclub act. In some sort of mental performance art piece, Dawn then pulls out a gun and shoots half the audience, including her own daughter, as part of the ‘act’. She’s then put on trial and eventually sent to the electric chair which is framed as some sort of grave injustice. It’s weird.
Oh yeah, there’s also some other strange stuff , like Dawn getting acid chucked in her face, her daughter becoming a Hare Krishna aftering murdering her dad and also some gogo dancing. I really don’t find any of it funny or thought-provoking and I’m left scratching my head as to what this film is trying to achieve, other than very deliberately putting a lot of normally marginalised, odd-looking people in the limelight. Female Trouble definitely succeeds as a celebration of society’s oddballs but doesn’t give them anything interesting to do or say, while doing them a disservice by making all the characters incredibly unsavoury and unlikeable. Dawn is clearly the ‘hero’ here and I feel like Waters wants us to adore her, but with her off-putting whining and loud, bratty behaviour, she just pisses me right off. The whole thing leaves me feeling a bit grubby, to be honest.
I suppose this one does teach parents a firm lesson about making damn sure you get your kids the Christmas present they ask for - you just never know if they’re going to go off the rails and embark on a sickening crime spree. I don’t see the appeal of intentional ‘bad’, gross-out filmmaking like this, though it does have legions of dedicated fans, so what do I know?
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