PINK FLAMINGOS. HAIRSPRAY. CECIL B. DEMENTED. CRYBABY. SERIAL MOM.
Say what you will about cult filmmaker John Waters, but his work definitely has a unique style and point of view, with an eye for both the grotesque (Divine eating dogshit in PINK FLAMINGOS) and for biting satire (battling the need to conform in HAIRSPRAY, the sensationalism of murder trials in SERIAL MOM).
Now Waters is going to be giving a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Writer's Guild of America. The 70-year old provocateur seemed delighted by the nomination, saying:
This really is an honor, because it's coming from my peers…My main career is as a writer. … I think if I had to put something on my income tax, it would be 'Writer.'
He also seemed pleased that the award itself is named after blacklisted screenwriter and longtime WGAE member Ian McLellan Hunter:
I like that the award is named after a Communist sympathizer…probably would have been a Communist in the '50s, a beatnik and an egghead.
Meanwhile, the award will be handed out to him by THE WIRE's David Sims, a fellow Baltimore native, who had this to say:
Time and again, Waters has celebrated the very American notion that there is, in fact, no normal. I am proud that I share a city with this fine storyteller.
Waters, whose credits include not just film but plays, is out performing his own JOHN WATERS CHRISTMAS. Meanwhile, NBC just recently broadcasted a live performance of his HAIRSPRAY.
Not bad for a guy who once said "I pride myself on the fact that my work has no socially redeeming value."