‘Multiple Maniacs’: the movie John Waters made to scare the hippies
Despite being made decades ago, John Waters’ early movies, like Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, are still shocking today. When the young filmmaker wasn’t dropping acid or bar-hopping, he was gathering the people he met along the way to join in on his perverse productions. Nothing was off-limits, such as re-enacting JFK’s assassination just a few years after the event, with drag queen Divine as Jackie Kennedy.
His movies have garnered a dedicated cult fanbase, with many people revelling in Waters’ sheer ridiculousness and transgressive approach to cinema. Everything was independent and low-budget, and Waters created his own cast, whom he dubbed his Dreamlanders, who repeatedly starred in his films.
His most iconic Dreamlander was Divine, real name Harris Glenn Milstead, who always dressed as his drag alter-ego for his appearances in Waters’ films. At the time, Divine, an overweight drag queen with seemingly no limits to their outrageousness, shocked people – but that was the point. Divine and Waters were the perfect team, matching each other’s levels of ridiculousness. Divine was down for practically anything Waters asked, such as in Pink Flamingos, where he put real dog shit in his mouth.
Waters’ earliest films, like Eat Your Makeup, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, and Mondo Trasho, helped him to establish himself as a unique and boundary-pushing indie filmmaker. Yet, 1970’s Multiple Maniacs, his first with sound, truly introduced him to the underground scene. The movie, to this day, has some scenes that will have you retching or turning away from the screen.
The film begins with The Cavalcade of Perversion, a freak show where Divine introduces viewers to some shocking acts, such as a man who eats his own vomit. Violence soon ensues as Divine begins killing people without any reasoning, revelling in the chaos. From jealousy-induced plans of murder to lobster rape, anal stimulation via rosary beads in a church, and cannibalism, Waters doesn’t shy away from depicting some hideous acts. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Waters explained, “In 1969, people actually believed there was a revolution happening. We made this movie to scare hippies, hopefully in a humorous way.”
That was the general ethos of Waters’ work: to scare people but in a good way. With his intensely bizarre films, he broke down taboos and challenged the mainstream, proudly highlighting the ‘freaks’ and ‘weirdos’ that are so often made fun of. He championed various kinds of stereotypically outcasted people in his films, who were actually his friends.
Multiple Maniacs was the first real taste of Waters’ ability to make feature-length movies, and while Pink Flamingos emerged just two years later with even more repulsive and controversial scenes, the previous film deserves as much credit. In Multiple Maniacs, sex and violence intertwine, but while many movies combine the two with a romanticised appeal, Waters laid everything out as dirtily and grossly as possible. We can’t be sure whether Waters actually scared hippies with Multiple Maniacs, but it made a lot of viewers uncomfortable, regardless of what subculture they identified with.
