Female Trouble

     This was John Waters's fourth full-length feature film and by far my personal favorite. We follow Dawn Davenport as she goes from a pick-pocketing high school dropout to a mutant fashion model. It starts at The Lipstick Beauty Salon owned by Donald and Donna Dasher, two extreme stereotypes of the ultimately snobby and super wealthy. You even have to audition to get your freaking hair done at their prestigious salon. Only women of an extra trashy flavor are good enough for their salon though, so Dawn fits right in. All other slightly less trashy women are referred to Mr. Ray's Wig World because just one "ordinary" customer would be enough to plummet their reputation. 

      Dawn gets married to Gator, a complete louse who is a hairstylist she met at the salon, and proceeds to have the brattiest daughter ever conceived named Taffy, played by Mink Stole (an obvious adult yet plays a child). But when the Dashers ask Dawn to be a model for them as part of a beauty experiment, Dawn becomes intrigued. You see, they believe that crime is beauty. The worse the crime is, the more ravishing one becomes. A model, but mostly just a glamourous guinea pig. Who else to fill this need, but the notorious beauty Divine.  

     I always found it so cool that even though Divine, who was extremely overweight, not that pretty, loved to be disgusting, and had a really creepy vibe about her was always depicted as being the epitome of gorgeousness.  This wasn't just an invention for this movie, it was a theme that followed Divine in everything she did, from JohnWaters films, then into other projects, including her music career.  I mean, who else but Divine could record a song like "I'm So Beautiful" and have it become a huge hit?  Apparently, Divine wasn't really considered a Drag Queen, she was more of a Drag Terrorist, with other Drag Queens being completely scared to death of her.  What a priceless concept though, for non-beauty to be forced into being considered real beauty, almost like it was done at gunpoint!

     This movie is by far considered to be one of his absolute best by lovers of cult films and fans of John Waters in particular. This movie was written specifically as a vehicle for Divine after the underground success of Pink Flamingos made her famous (or infamous), and includes most of the original Dreamlanders that are in all of John Waters's early films.  While Pink Flamingos was more about shock value in general, Female Trouble had shock value, but with a more solid storyline, and after it was released, Divine was firmly introduced to the world as a bonafide star.