POLYESTER @ 40

 

May 29th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of John Waters’ crossover film, Polyester. After a decade of working on the fringes of midnight movie cult cinema with such low budget features as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, Polyester was his first attempt at doing anything approaching a “mainstream” feature. Being shot on actual 35mm film and featuring a real Hollywood star in the form of one aging heartthrob, Tab Hunter, it was a significant step into accessing a much broader audience than the freaks who’d slither into a late night theater when most respectable people were all tucked up in their beds. That's not to say it was bereft of the bizarre transgressions of his earlier films, but it did tamp them down enough to smuggle them into a few mainstream big screens.

In 1981, I was still living in Thunder Bay, ON and had only come across a few scant mentions of John Waters and Divine in the odd punk music magazine. Yet I knew enough to realize that, when I saw his new movie advertised as playing in the local theater, I had to check it out. The advance promo regarding the “Odorama” gimmick also piqued my curiosity. So when it came, some friends and I made our way downtown and settled in for a scent filled evening of warped suburban dysfunctional family fun!

The film begins with a scientist describing the Odorama process and offering some examples of how it worked and what you were supposed to do. This was all inspired by the old William Castle style gags and tricks he’s incorporate into his horror B-movies. Everyone was issued a card with numbered pink circles on one side and the Polyester logo on the other. We were instructed to scratch a numbered circle whenever the corresponding number appeared on the lower corner of the screen. The first number on the card, when scratched, gave off a lovely rose smell in conjunction with the rose the scientist displayed on the screen. After this demonstration, the movie proper started and we found ourselves in the Fishpaw household master bedroom as Francine (Divine) and her husband are in bed preparing to go to sleep. As we see the number 2 begin to flash on the screen, we all scratch and the unmistakable sulfuric scent of a fart fills our nostrils as poor Francine begins fanning her face with her hand in disgust at her husband’s foul bowel expulsion. That was when we knew that we were likely not going to get too many pleasant scents wafting off our scratch cards for the remainder of the movie. From there, it was everything from airplane glue to dirty sneakers to skunk and any other unsettling odor that could be stuck under our noses. It only relented with the final 10th circle at the end of the movie when we got to smell some air freshener to leave us with a “happy” ending!

Multi-sensory gags aside, the movie is a riotously melodramatic descent into a struggling housewife’s crumbling marriage and the trauma and stress of dealing with two delinquent teens - one a daughter dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and the other a son obsessed with women’s shoes and smashing their feet in terrible random assaults. Francine’s only support through it all comes from her dear clueless debutante friend, Cuddles, played to oblivious perfection by Edith Massey. The tears and the sorrows of the Fishpaw family become an exercise in schadenfreude comedy as each progressive indignation leads to more and more hilarity for the audience.

From here, the gateway drug of Polyester sent me into the theater again and again whenever a John Waters movie found its way to any local silver screen. Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living became essential staples in my underground cinema education. After crossing into more mainstream works, I continued to follow him through Cry Baby, Hairspray, Serial Mom, Pecker and A Dirty Shame. John Waters became more than just a film director for me. He became the fount of a particular kind of “trash” culture which sent me searching for so many other bizarre examples of movies, music and fashion as well as histories of people and events which went beyond the mundane realities of so called “normal” life. Aunt Ida from Female Trouble gave me a guiding principal that I’ve since held onto when she famously said, “The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.” I wholeheartedly concur with that and continue to be dedicated to seeking out the bent in all things. That quest found its “ground zero” in the work of John Waters. For me, Polyester was the flash point which began that journey.