The belated moment Werner Herzog found out John Waters was gay
In the 1960s, John Waters began making short films with his friends, expressing a penchant for subversive, shocking topics. For example, his first project, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, involved an interracial marriage ordained by someone dressed as a KKK member, and Eat Your Makeup included a recreation of the JFK assassination just five years after it happened.
From the start of his career, Waters cemented himself as one of cinema’s most outrageous, boundary-pushing filmmakers. His iconic movie Pink Flamingos remains his most controversial. It featured the drag queen Divine eating real dog shit and giving an unsimulated blowjob to his on-screen son. Moreover, the movie also features a disturbing sex scene involving chickens and a close-up shot of a prolapsed anus. It’s certainly not the easiest of watches, but it allowed Waters to earn his place in cinema legacy.
Since then, Waters has continued to make shocking movies. However, as he entered the 1980s and beyond, he began to make more accessible and higher-budget productions, such as Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and Serial Mom. Regardless of your opinions of Waters’ work, there’s no denying his status as an icon of camp cinema. Rooted in Susan Sontag’s essay ‘Notes on Camp’, the term describes art that revels in outrageousness, excess, shock, and kitsch. Waters’ work is, without a doubt, camp.
Moreover, Waters frequently worked with Divine, who became one of the most popular and influential drag queens of all time. According to Sontag, “corny flamboyant femaleness”, which Divine performs perfectly within Waters’ work, is unquestionably camp. Campness has always been linked to and celebrated within gay culture, and Waters’ movies are no exception. While Waters’ films are loved by fans of all different genders, races and sexualities, the director is an undeniable gay icon. Since the early days of his career, Waters has carved out a cinematic space for the underrepresented and marginalised, attracting many dedicated LGBTQ+ fans.
Waters’ is a strong advocate for gay rights, and he never shies away from addressing his homosexuality within his work, whether that be via his films, books, stand-up comedy or interviews. However, it took a long time for acclaimed director Werner Herzog to get the memo.
In the 2007 documentary On the Ecstasy of Ski-Flying: Werner Herzog in Conversation with Karen Beckman, the German director reveals that he was surprised to discover that Waters is gay. He begins by explaining that he struggles to understand irony, often taking things very literally. However, this leads him to discuss how he “cannot distinguish a gay man from a straight man”.
He continues: “Unless the man comes in drag and is so obviously gay, then I would notice”.
Then, Herzog humorously states: “After 35 years of knowing John Waters, I turn to my wife and I said to her, ‘I have the feeling this man is gay.'” After his revelation, Herzog praises Waters, whom he calls “very dear to his heart,” as “the boldest of the bold,” stating, “I wish I had the guts of this man”.
Watch the clip below.
