A Dirty Shame (2004)

Interview with John Waters

John Waters jumps at every chance to visit Switzerland. Less than twelve months ago he personally guided through an exposition if his own photographs in the Fotomuseum Winterthur. Now the so called "Pope of Trash" is back to promote his latest film that finally gets released in Switzerland. A Dirty Shame is a ribald view on the clash of different ethical cultures in a Baltimore community. With OutNow.CH John Waters talked about big breasts, the Swiss AIDS-awareness campaign and the upcoming DVD-release of the Cry-Baby director's cut.

» Deutsche Übersetzung

OutNow.CH (ON): It has been roughly a year since your last trip to Switzerland for your "Change of Life"-Exposition in Winterthur. Do you have a special connection to Switzerland?

John Waters (JW): I like Switzerland a lot. I always tell people that I am a Swiss person trapped in an American's body because I am very orderly. It's the only country where the rich do it well - they are not vulgar about it. Usually I hate the rich but here I like them. I have great friends here. I like the Alps. I don't ski but I love to go to ski resorts because I like to be the only person that rides down on the lift. Zurich is a good movie town and it's a great town for contemporary art.

ON: I'm not sure if you have seen the new AIDS-Awareness billboards that are all over Switzerland at the moment. They show Hollywood stars with a Swiss origin making the peace sign and slogans like "Semen or Blood - never in the mouth". What goes trough your mind when you see that? (OutNow.CH shows him two billboards with Renée Zellweger and Marc Forster.)

JW: It's so great. It reminds me of Provincetown, a gay community in the US that is by the beach. I walked across the sand there and see this booth set up by park rangers that distributed pamphlets. I thought it was about the dunes and nature. I then went over and the little pamphlet said "Rimming and you". (He laughs) That's the same kind of thing. Big stars saying such a thing like "Semen or Blood - never in the mouth" would never ever happen in the US! But it's good these billboards are out. The Vatican should put them up. I know 22-year-old people that have AIDS now and to me that is staggering.

ON: Where did you come up with all the fetishes shown in A Dirty Shame? The bear phenomenon among gay men for instance, is that for real?

JW: There is no semen or blood in anyone's mouth in my movie! But the bear phenomenon is huge. Just put "Bears and Zurich" in Google and you will find it. There are three hand-books out in regular book shops about it. And all gay people have heard of it but not a single straight person knows about it. It's really weird. I don't know about here but in America all straight men in their forties are bears. They just don't know it.

ON: Are there fetishes you would have liked to put in the movie but didn't in the end?

JW: I didn't use fist fucking and pissing. Things that wouldn't be funny or cruel against women. I picked the most ridiculous ones like people that are into tickling. Or the ones I haven't used before. I've already used foot fetishes and shrimping. I didn't want to repeat them.

ON: Has it become harder to shock people nowadays?

JW: I never tried to shock people. The only shocking thing in A dirty Shame for me is the guy drinking the flower water - because it is really repulsing.

ON: One or two decades ago there were none of these confessions on daytime talk shows. That's why I though it was harder to shock people nowadays.

JW: Generally these shows work for lower middle class people as an economic group. My movies never play with those people. They did these tests of where my movies did best and it was always in the richest neighbourhoods with the most educated people, which is really humiliating for me. I want the people to like my movies but the elite likes them more. The heroes in my movies are always working class and the elite is evil, but the elite is who likes them.

ON: You only make fun of the things you like? What's to like about Hartford Road in your hometown of Baltimore then?

JW: I've been hanging around in that area for years. I go to that biker bar from the movie that really exists. It's just real people I don't have to talk about show business with. It's about them I make my movies. I picked that neighbourhood also because there has never been a movie made there. This means generally that people are much nicer to work with since they don't know the hell of making a movie in a neighbourhood. And secondly because no one was uptight about it. I thought we would be getting into big trouble with the adult baby and the trees that were carved like penises. But they thanked us for shooting there.

ON: Even after the release?

JW: They all came to the premiere. All the bikers lined up in front of the theatre. One women I think was complaining on the radio about the penises in the trees that were not right for the school children.

ON: Has irony killed the golden ages of trash?

JW: No. Hollywood killed the trash movement. They wanted the money from it. When they started using the things they would never use in their own movies exploitation was over. When pornography became legal there were two things: Hollywood got the trash, Porno got the sex. Any Exploitation movies were over. The only reason they had it before is because Hollywood couldn't do these sort of things. And Hollywood soon will have penetration with major stars. In Europe they already have it. I'm not sure if this is a good idea. Real stars look silly when they have sex on screen.

ON: Was Chesty Morgan an influence for Ursula Udders?

JW: Yes she was. I know where Chesty Morgan is today. She manages an apartment building in Miami and she looks good. She's proud of her career. She was definitively a big influence. I already used scenes from Double Agent 75 in Serial Mom. I knew Doris Wishman who made this movie. She just died two years ago. But I never met Chesty. But I know people who have and I have pictures from her signed to me.

ON: Did you test various sizes for Selma Blairs prosthetics? Could they be too large?

JW: At some point they were. It was a thin line because they were supposed to look ridiculous. There are woman who have tits like this in porn movies in the extreme breast genre. They got them exactly right. We did drawings and computer images including pictures of Selma to see how they need to be on her body to have the right size.

ON: Jimmy Knoxville is also in the film. Are you a fan of Jackass?

JW: Very much. I love Jackass!

ON: Do you think it's a show for gay men?

JW: He says that. I don't. I always asked him, when are you going to make a gay movie. He said, what do you think Jackass was. And he is straight! It's so weird because this is a show where I think the target audience is heterosexual male teenagers but it still features male nudity. This is really confusing for me and funny. When two straight guys can be seen on film and one of them is jerking of in front of the other and the other goes "eywwh" it's the complete opposite of what happens in gay porn movies.

ON: How did you convince David Hasselhoff for his part?

JW: I just sent him the script. He has been parodying himself in Spongebob Squarepants and people told me he has a good sense of humour. I was scared directing him on the toilet. To tell him to grunt was a little strange. I didn't know how far I could go since I didn't know him that well. But we did three takes and he was absolutely fine about it. He had his wife and family on the set.

ON: What will the difference be between the R-rated and the NC-17 rated DVD of A Dirty Shame?

JW: Everything will be different. Every time they said a dirty word in the film I had to shoot one take for television that was completely different for legal reasons. When Johnny Knoxville goes down on Tracy Ullman, he comes up with a shoe and she says stop licking my feet. I had to do that for every movie and never used it. But this time we will release it as the neuter version. It's basically to trick people into buying the movie. The NC-17 is the one that has the commentary and all the extra footage. But even on the cover we had to make changes. Ursula's tits are behind Jimmy Knoxville. Everything is neutered up!

ON: Fans are eagerly awaiting the director's cut of Cry-Baby on DVD. Any words on the special features on there?

JW: I am exited about it because this is the only one of my movies that hasn't been out on DVD yet. I added two musical numbers and I added some plot. It will also include bonus footage of the end: the whole Tracy Lords-part, where she gets kidnapped by Toe Joe. The parts that are going to be in there are Iggy Pop that does a retarded dance by himself. There's some good stuff.

ON: Has Johnny Depp been involved in the making of the DVD?

JW: Johnny comes back and gives an interview and it's amazing. They found everybody again today and interviewed them again including Hatchet-Face that looks so different. With Johnny though you can't tell the difference when they cut back and forth between the new material and the old stuff from the electronic press kit. It's like Dorian Gray. He doesn't look like he's aged at all. He also wears a kind of a fifties outfit too.

ON: To finish this up I have some pop-up-questions.

JW: Ok.

ON: George W. Bush

JW: An unfortunate neuter that is leading our country.

ON: European Graduate School in Saas Fee.

JW: Oh yes! The only school ever, where you could get a graduate degree in John Waters. I certainly taught there many years and had a good time.

ON: Divine

JW: I miss him. I'm still shocked he's dead. I am mad he's dead.

ON: Johnny Depp

JW: A great friend, a beautiful man, a kind person and one of the best actors we have in the whole world.

ON: Next Projects

JW: I'm doing this TV-Show: "John Waters presents Movies that will corrupt you", where I introduce thirteen movies and show them on television sort of like Alfred Hitchcock. And then I'm going to write my next movie this summer. I know what it is maybe. It's bad luck to talk about it. I'm not quite pregnant with it yet.

ON: OutNow.CH

JW: It's a computer thing. And my computer has given me trouble through this whole trip. I am convinced that my computer is plotting to kill me.

ON: I wish you look so that your computer doesn't do anything harmful to you and thank you very much for this interview.

05.05.2005 / rm