How underpants became the key to John Waters finding happiness
John Waters is the wonderful weirdo of Hollywood; an unspoken hero to the misfits and outcasts of the world and pioneer of the counter-culture filmmaking scene. With a body of work that spans from drag queens to cannibals and house-wives, Waters was pivotal in giving a voice to those on the margins of society, mocking the stereotypes associated with these people by using a brash and surrealist comedic style that was famously described as being ‘bad taste’.
However, his films have found a cult following over the years, with Serial Mom and Polyester being renowned for their new levels of depravity, and Pink Flamingos being labelled as “one of the most vile, stupid and repulsive films ever made”. To this day, I can say that Pink Flamingos is one of the only films that has made me throw up, to which I’m forever indebted to Waters and his ingenious use of a chicken in one particularly disgusting scene.
But for someone so subversive and delightfully odd in his filmmaking style, Waters has a somewhat simple life that does not seem conducive to the kind of mind we’d associate with these stories. As a self-proclaimed creature of comfort and routine who is meticulous about the way he cooks, travels and works, it’s hard to imagine how Waters could muster the inspiration for his particular branch of storytelling, but he recently stated that he has one simple secret to happiness.
Waters stated that “The key to my happiness – four sets of underpants in all four places. I can go to anywhere I live and not have to take clothes.”
It sounds surprising, but perhaps a sense of balance and continuity in his everyday life is a key to the controlled chaos in his work. There are many directors who have famously contradictory creative and personal identities, with Michael Haneke often described as a Santa Claus lookalike, but with a disturbing filmography that does not line up with his endearing appearance. The same goes for Ari Aster and Yorgos Lanthimos – both known for their grotesque and mind-bending films in which people often react to by questioning whether the directors have ever had therapy. But in real life they seem quiet, humble and completely non-threatening, despite the subject matter of their work.
Perhaps only the most stable and balanced of people are able to unlock this side of their brain, that a sense of calm and stability is necessary to unlock the twisted ideas that lie deep in our sub-conscious, that we need to lure ourselves into a mental safety net in order to get to the really nitty-gritty ideas.
It just goes to show that sometimes the most unassuming people can have depths that we couldn’t imagine in our weirdest dreams, and that the John Waters of the world are key to unlocking our full selves, no matter how gross.
