Female Trouble: Dumpster Diving for a Message

Female Trouble is painful, disgusting, and hard to watch, however, there's a method to the madness of John Waters. In Female Trouble, a nonsensical story of hideous people in a disgusting world delivers a commentary on fame, beauty, and art. 

Personally, watching Female Trouble was a strenuous task, having to take breaks from the movie every 25 minutes. I didn’t even finish the movie by our class meeting and later had to rewatch it. John Waters dubs himself the “Pope of Trash” for a good reason. But in this trash, there is a story (it wouldn’t be a movie without one). Repeatedly, John Water’s shows us how gross the characters are and the world they live in. Dawn’s pursuit of fame is entrenched in filth from head to toe, from murdering multiple people to injecting beauty products into her veins she does anything to be famous. Her greed is portrayed as horrific and yet during the entirety of the film the rest of the characters believe it is beautiful. The Dashers are in constant amazement of the shitty art they make based around Dawn’s repulsive acts. All of this piles up to show the audience the truth in all of these things. Fame, beauty, and art are all sickening to John Waters. The very reason why he goes so far with this movie, creating it to be trash, is for that very reason. He makes it his mission to push the audience over the edge because if he didn't they wouldn't see how strongly he feels about these topics. His point would be lost if he didn’t make his movie the way it was. 

John Waters forms Female Trouble in its extremes in order to comment on beauty, art, and fame. By being so extreme he resembles lewd refrigerator art. But it's still art. Is it fun to look at? Not really. But that's the point.


Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 1, 2020 at 5:01 PM

    I agree that this film was made purposefully disgusting. Waters sends a very intense message about beauty and fame through this film, though I wonder if this message comes through clearly to most viewers.

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