Tonight’s triple feature tracks the unlikely mainstreaming of one of American cinema’s most hostile voices: John Waters. Born in Baltimore in 1946, Waters grew up inside the postwar, Greatest Generation moral order he would spend his career attacking—suburban respectability, sexual repression, and enforced normalcy. These three films mark his evolution from punishment to precision.

Polyester (1981) is Waters’ first real stab at the mainstream, a vicious parody of 1950s suburban melodrama starring Divine. Complete with Odorama scratch-and-sniff cards, it’s less entertainment than indictment—cruel, confrontational, and openly contemptuous of middle-class virtue.

By Hairspray (1988), Waters shifts strategy. Set in early-’60s Baltimore and starring Ricki Lake, the film uses classical filmmaking and musical structure to smuggle Waters’ politics—body acceptance, integration, anti-bigotry—into a broad audience. It’s his Trojan horse.

Cry-Baby (1990) completes the arc. Starring Johnny Depp and notably lacking Divine, it reframes 1950s greaser culture with historical accuracy, restoring the era’s sexual panic and moral hysteria that nostalgia like Grease erased. More coherent, more humane, and more mature, it’s Waters finally understanding rather than punishing his past.

You don’t have to like John Waters—but these films matter because they remember American culture correctly.


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