Female Trouble

A relentlessly building, frame-by-frame crescendo of deliberate offensiveness. It grows increasingly difficult to separate the broad satire against square society from the equally obvious, near-Sadean delight John Waters and his uniquely talented company of offbeat Baltimoreans take in discovering and displaying new combinations of the perverse and outrageous in nearly every scene. But tracing the roots of crowd pleasers like 'Polyester,' 'Serial Mom' and 'Hairspray' here (and even further back to 'Pink Flamingos') is somehow yet more odd. Edie Massey alone remains above it all: charmingly oblivious, preternaturally sweet despite her physical unloveliness and, well, human as always, even locked in a cage threatening to gouge out Divine's eyes with her hook. Her best line: 'I don't want no G-d d-mn eggs!'

The first time I saw Female Trouble I was a sheltered suburban white boy and it blew me away. The film begins in white suburbia and we quickly see that Dawn Davenport ( Divine) has just about had it with her lame parents and teachers. She is driven to extremes by the numbing vacuity of her surroundings." I hate this school and all these teachers who don't know one thing.I hate my parents too."From there Dawn follows her own dim lights to where they will lead her. She's always true to herself and is refreshingly driven by her id. I applauded her audacity and courage as I watched her destiny unfold and lead to it's awful end. But I watched from the numb, vacuous safety of my suburban shelter. One thing I noticed was how close a connection there is between Dawn her friends Chicklet and Concetta and Edina Monsoon and her friend Patsy Stone of Absolutely Fabulous. Like Dawn, Edina is a willful, childish, self-centered grown-up with a daughter who is appalled by her mother's immaturity. Both Taffy and Saffy are the voices of maturity while their mothers and their friends are the irresponsible children.

This is John Waters at his zenith. In ten minutes time this film has more hilarious, outrageous humor than most other underground, drive in films do in their entirety. Like with PINK FLAMINGOES it deserves accolades for it's sheer tasteless audacity. It is consistently funny, unrelentingly perverse, obnoxious, and ugly. Just like you would expect. It also has Waters film trademark of having the actors shout their lines instead of saying them.

This is much more of a solid satire than many may originally presume. In some ways it was way ahead of it's time. It keenly shows the cult of celebrity and the desperation some have to obtain it. How skewered the famous and infamous have become and our over emphasis on beauty. It also shows how the media exploits the desperate and causes the distorted image.

Above all though this is really Divine's vehicle. She (he) steals every scene she is in. Even just watching her do modeling poses or dancing on a bar top is hilarious. She also writes and performs the opening song and even plays a male character that has sex with her female character (very well edited). There's also one inglorious moment where you even see the close up of his genitals.

For those with the right mentality this is pure entertainment. It's also has a perverse brilliance that has lost non of it's edge of potency.

8 out of 10

I am at a complete loss to understand why this film was not nominated for an Oscar for costuming, makeup and set decoration. It had the most outrageous costuming that I have ever seen. The sets were so hideous that they made me nauseous. The makeup was beyond belief.

That was the good things about the film that featured an outrageous star in Divine, a transvestite that played Dawn Davenport. He was so over the top that I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

This is the first John Waters (Hairspray, Pecker) film that I have seen. He is definitely on the cutting edge in outrageous humor, horror, and satire.

This film on the outrageous cult of celebrity is no more outrageous than the current obsession in the media with Paris Hilton.

If you haven't seen a John Waters film, check out the Sundance Channel for this one.

God bless John Waters. He's made some of the best, crudest feel-good movies, and this is one of his crowning achievements. It's amazing how his film, ugly-looking and full of lipstick-smeared freaks, can feel positive and upbeat; while he's mocking everything in sight, he doesn't stand back and protect himself with irony or winks -- he jumps right in there, and that involvement, that energy, is easy to see and feel. It's amazing that he can feature masturbation with needle-nose pliers, beating a child with a chair, a game of "car accident," and Divine literally screwing himself and not have it be off-putting.

The very idea that Waters uses a fat transvestite with a beehive hairdo to illustrate his scorn for school shows he's not so interested in subtlety. And Divine is awesome, as always, his prissy, gravely scream -- a freak you want on your side. This is one of Waters' best satirical attempts -- there are digs at hippies and Hare Krishnas, and two scenes in particular are very prophetic: the gay encouraging, and the killing for art. Waters even mocks his own shameless exhibitionism in the testimony of the Dashers. 9/10