“Stars simply seem not to apply”: Why Roger Ebert refused to give ‘Pink Flamingos’ a star rating
If you were an avid or even a casual filmgoer in the US between the 1970s and early 2010s, you may well have based your watching habits on the opinions of one man: Roger Ebert. Known for his humorous and incisive reviews, he was an authority on new releases in a way that few critics since have managed to be. His tastes were wide-ranging, encompassing everything from the goofily sentimental to the experimental and esoteric.
One of his greatest selling points as a critic was his ability to articulate his opinions in a way that was profoundly entertaining. If he loved a movie, he would wax eloquent about it. If he didn’t like a movie, he would tear it apart with such laugh-out-loud vitriol that you’d have to read to the end, even though he got his point across in the first sentence.
He reviewed countless films in his lifetime and doled out plenty of half-stars where they were due, but there was at least one movie that he refused to rate altogether, a project he described as unworthy of the star system or even of being considered a film at all. It was John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, which was released in 1972 and remains infamous to this day.
The film stars counterculture icon Divine as a criminal living in a trailer with her mum, son, and partner, and who proudly claims to be “the filthiest person alive”. When two other criminals show up to try to unseat her, everyone engages in a series of activities to claim the title. In one infamous scene, Divine ingests dog faeces.
When Pink Flamingos was released, it became something of an event. Tellingly, the trailer that New Line Cinema produced did not show a single second of the film. Instead, it featured a series of bemused and giggling audience members trying to make sense of what they’d just seen.
The film is now considered a cult classic, and Waters is a bonafide icon and beloved sage within the industry. But Ebert was not swayed by public sentiment. You can imagine him being just as shocked and disgusted by the movie in 1972 as many people were, but even when the tide had shifted in Waters’ favour 25 years later, the critic stuck to his guns.
“There is a temptation to praise the film, however grudgingly, just to show you have a strong enough stomach to take it,” he wrote in his 1997 review. “It is a temptation I can resist.”
He said its only redeeming quality was that the actors did everything in the film in real life. If they hadn’t, he reasoned, the movie “would merely be depraved and disgusting”. Instead, it has a strange documentary quality that could potentially be commended. Ebert conceded that Waters was “a charming man” who made some enjoyable films, including Polyester and Hairspray, but he refused to offer Pink Flamingos any shred of admiration.
“I am not giving a star rating to Pink Flamingos,” he said. “Because stars simply seem not to apply.” It couldn’t even be considered a film, he continued. It was more of an object.
Many viewers would agree with him, but many people—including snobby film critics—applaud its unhinged, giddy filthiness. Even America’s Library of Congress sees it as an important artefact, having selected it for preservation in 2021 as a piece of work that is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Though Ebert would likely disagree, it’s all three.
