Female Trouble- Criticizing Society

Female Trouble at it’s base, is a movie about a spoiled girl, Dawn, who runs away from home after not receiving the shoes she wanted for Christmas, gets knocked up, starts frequenting a beauty salon where she marries one of the beauticians, then Dawn starts working with the shop owners who photograph her partaking in various crimes. Eventually, Dawn’s husband leaves her and his aunt Ida, throws acid at the girls face, disfiguring her. The beauty shop owners capture Ida, lock her in a cage and Dawn cuts off her hand as revenge. After this the beauty shop owners start a nightclub where Dawn performs, before performing she strangles her daughter to death and then she starts shooting people in the audience. When the police arrive, they too start shooting the audience. Dawn then goes to death row for murder where she electrocuted to death. Sound like a mess? That’s because it is.


If there’s one thing that John Waters does well, it’s repulse people. This movie was vile and disgusting and very difficult to watch. But that was entirely the point. He wanted to poke fun at society and culture and everything that Americans value. From Christmas, to hippies, to art, to the police, to christianity and beauty itself, this movie takes a crack at everything. It’s not angry, which is something that sets this movie apart from others that ridicule society. This movie is deliberately trash, but it also promotes gender fluidity and the main character is a drag star, so it’s not all bad.

Comments

  1. Julianne CarterOctober 31, 2020 at 1:33 PM

    Hey! How you described the film was interesting, and I found it interesting how you described certain parts of the film.

    ReplyDelete

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