John Waters lists “10 things every role model needs”
Cinema has long been a tool used to improve society. However, very few auteurs can claim to have changed the medium and broader culture in such a transgressively positive way as John Waters has. The 76-year-old is affectionately hailed as the ‘Pope of Trash’, and he has delivered a range of impactful titles over his career. Memorable masterpieces like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, both of which star the legendary drag queen Divine, will always remain classics of Queer cinema.
Born in Baltimore in 1946, Walters became mesmerised by the allure of cinema at a young age. One of the first titles that significantly impacted him was the 1953 Leslie Caron flick Lili, which tells the story of a young French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is run through the medium of four puppets.
It made such a mark on the young Waters that, aged only seven, he began to stage violent puppet shows at other children’s birthday parties, setting the scene for the filth that was to splatter across his cinematic career. Elsewhere, classics such as The Wizard of Oz also showed him the endless potential that cinema had; duly, it’s a form he has pushed to its limits.
He reflected on the influence of the 1939 film: “I was always drawn to the forbidden subject matter in the very beginning. The Wizard of Oz opened me up because it was one of the first movies I ever saw. It opened me up to villainy, to screenwriting, to costumes. And great dialogue. I think the witch has great, great dialogue.”
Waters might have taken a step away from directing for nearly two decades. Still, his legacy is as shimmering as they come, with his forthcoming return to the medium, Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, promising to shake things up once again. He helped to change the trajectory of cinema, with his outings such as Pink Flamingos remaining as vital today as they were when first released.
Even though he has been inactive in the film industry, this hasn’t stopped Waters from helping us to live our best lives. While speaking at the Hay Festival in 2011 for The Telegraph, he discussed his status as a role model and listed ten criteria for what every role model needs. As well as putting forth the rules for becoming a legend, it also gives us pointers on how to mix life up a little bit.
John Waters lists “10 things every role model needs”:
1. History
With his first point, Waters explains the need for a role model to have history, opining that it is a status that develops over time and not overnight.
He expresses: “You can’t have a one-night-stand role model. No one can become a role model in 24 hours. It helps a lot if you knew them when you were young, so they sort of grow or fester with you, like Johnny Mathis was for me.”
2. Be extreme
He then discusses the need to be extreme, and that bravery is essential to becoming a role model: “All my role models have to be. They have to be braver than I’ve ever been.
“Even to survive success is hard, no matter if it’s widespread success like Johnny Mathis had, or Bobby Boris Pickett, who his whole life just had to sing one song [‘The Monster Mash’]. Today too many people are trying hard to be extreme. For the people I admire, it was natural, and they turned it into art.”
3. Style
Style is abstract to Waters, but to have none is an abject failure. Mentioning Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, he explains: “You can have bad style, but you have to have some style.
“That’s why I wrote about Rei Kawakubo, who reinvented fashion to be damaged and to be everything you hoped it was not when you bought an outfit. And she quadrupled the price. That’s a magic trick.”
4. Be alarming
Something of a sister point to the need to be extreme, Waters thinks that you have to alarm people to become a role model. To make his point, he draws on the strange tale of St. Catherine of Siena drinking pus to show her devotion to God.
He says: “I think that’s important. And it’s different from being shocking. Alarming threatens the very core of your existence, it doesn’t just shock you – but you don’t know why it makes you nervous at first. You know, St Catherine of Siena drank pus for God. That was important to me because I thought: I want to be her, I don’t want to be half-assed! If I was going to be a Catholic, it would have been before the Reformation.”
5. Humour
Humour is a crucial part of life to Waters. As he says, it can secure sexual, financial and professional success and also stop you from being beaten up: “It’s very important to be well-read, but I never understand why people are so sure their partners have to be smart.
“What kind of smart do they mean? I’m not interested in talking about literature in bed! I like people who can make me laugh. Humour gets you laid, humour gets you hired, humour gets you through life. You don’t get beat up if you can make the person that’s going to beat you up laugh first.”
6. Be a troublemaker
Perhaps the most unsurprising entry on the list, being a troublemaker is key to Waters.
He believes that all art is troublemaking, with its purpose being to create “a little stir”: “All art is troublemaking, because why go through all the trouble of making it if you don’t cause a little stir?”
7. Bohemianism
Pushing boundaries is something that John Waters has always done, with Bohemianism something that every role model needs: “Bohemia saved my life.
“And by bohemia, I mean all sexualities mixed together, and people who do what they do not to get rich – freedom from suburbia. People who want to fit in but don’t are losers. Bohemians are people who don’t fit in because they don’t want to.”
8. Originality
Originality underpins everything that John Waters does, with him referring back to The Wizard of Oz and the influence of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West. He thinks he now channels the character’s energy, which he always wanted.
“Someone unique like Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, is an easy role model to have. She could fit into any of these categories – her outfit looked like Comme des Garçons, and anybody who could scare children like that… The problem was, I wanted to be her. And as I turn 65, that has sort of come true.”
9. Neuroses
As displayed in many of his films, neuroses are important to Waters, too. He deems them a prerequisite to becoming an artist and having a fulfilling life: “I think it helps to be neurotic. Neurotic people always end up being in the arts.
“If your kid fits in while in high school, they’re going to be a dull adult. I still see a few people I went to high school with, but the other ones, when they come up to me, I say: ‘I’m sorry, I took LSD, I don’t remember you.’ It works, because then they aren’t offended personally. It’s really just manners.”
10. Be a little bit insane
The cherry on the cake; a little insanity. Waters distinguishes between being neurotic and insane, maintaining that a little bit of both helps in living a fulfilling life.
He says: “That’s different from neurotic. You can stay home and be neurotic. You have to go out to be insane. You can be a little bit of both, but both need to be joyous. As long as you can find a moment of joy in even your worst behaviour, it’s something to be thankful for.”
