John Waters is an iconoclast, to say the least. His distinguishing feature is his pencil mustache. He has a sinister physiognomy; a menacing grimace. He looks like a happy murderer.  He’ll plot your disappearance and send convincing condolences to your mourners. His films aggrandize the ugly; glorify grit. He dances the line of mania, flirts with obsession, zeal, passion, he pushes buttons, pokes lions, gets on people’s nerves, sickens, titillates, impassions, evokes strong emotions of disgust and paranoia with a supercilious wit that tickles. He’s a disco drag queen rabble rouser. There is nothing same or sane about him. 

 

But somehow, he’s a genius the way he can dial up such gruesome colors and portray them so elegantly in film. His negatives are positives. Bad criticism stokes his flame. What’s even more clever about him is that he’s been able to maintain an air of classiness throughout his long career, despite the subject matter with which his films deal. He is a bibliophile. His apartment has thousands and thousands of books spilling off of the double stacked bookshelves onto the chairs and coffee tables.