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In our weekly series Anatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sex scenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, we look at an infamous sex scene from John Waters' Pink Flamingos which allegedly led to the death of a chicken!
I'm not the first and I won't be the last to say it, but god bless John Waters. No one quite captured the seedy side of American life with quite as much glee or cine-literate filmmaking prowess as Baltimore's Enfant terrible. Like a demented repertory theatre director with a stable of talent and the heart to put on a show, Waters held a mirror up to a society that had convinced itself it had outgrown such perverse behavior. If you think of Hollywood as the movie Airplane!— and who doesn't—then John Waters is Johnny.
Waters' third feature, Pink Flamingos, took him from underground sensation to slightly more mainstream pariah. While the hippest members of society had certainly heard of Waters' prior work, it wasn't until his 1972 masterwork that he began knocking the monocles out of the eyes of the moviegoing elite. Pink Flamingos tells the sordid tale of Babs Johnson (Divine), recently dubbed the filthiest person alive, and her family's battle with the nefarious Connie and Raymond Marble—played by Waters regulars Mink Stole and David Lochary.
It isn't just Babs who exhibits deviant behavior, it's a real family affair. Her mother Edie (Edith Massey) lives in a crib and subsists on a daily diet of nothing but eggs, while her biological son Crackers (Danny Mills) is another mess of sexual fetishes entirely that often intersect with her adopted daughter Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce). The Marbles, on the other hand, have their own brand of filthy behavior that all stems from a black market baby ring they run wherein they kidnap girls, impregnate them, and give the babies to—gasp—lesbian couples!
The two families begin a game of oneupmanship as Babs and crew do everything in their power to retain their hard-earned title, while The Marbles constantly attempt to usurp them. One of the ways that the Marbles intend to get inside information on the Johnsons is to recruit the naive rookie (Cookie Mueller) to seduce Crackers and then work for them as an informant. Little does Cookie know what she signed up for, not unlike Cookie Mueller herself.
If there's one thing you can say about John Waters, love him or hate him, it's that he's achingly transparent. He has therefore always been upfront about the fact that a chicken was killed so that Pink Flamingosmight live. Animal lovers, steel your nerves or leave the room, this is gonna get ugly. So one of Crackers'numerous kinks is that he has a crushing fetish—one of the great things about John Waters films is they introduce you to so many new things. As Crackers and Cookie are about to have sex for the first time, he just kinda throws her right into the deep end of this fetish by having sex with her in a chicken coop while his quasi-sister watches from outside.
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This is all real. This all happened. This was in the days before such convincing movie magic could be made. Happening as it did on the set of a down and dirty indie, a number of rumors have attached itself to the scene. Of course, Pink Flamingos is a film full of scenes that are rife for behind the scenes rumors, but Waters is completely on the level with the public about what they're seeing in one of his films. Often it's a simple case of what you see is what you get, just as you see in the film's slightly more infamous final scene.
Before we go, it's important to debunk one of the biggest rumors that has plagued this film for nearly 50 years. Being an underground indie made for around $10,000 and not a major Hollywood production, the American Humane Society was obviously not on set, so Pink Flamingos would never have born their stamp of approval. Since it's bound to come up in some encounter you'll have with a "movie buff," this wasn't the movie that started that tradition. 1939's Jesse James was the movie that started that... 81 years ago. Tell the guy at bar trivia night to grab some pine.
Waters, for his part, clearly lives a life without regrets...
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Catch up with our most recent editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene
—A Naked Julie Michaels Kicks Keanu's Ass in Point Break
—Alexis Dziena Gives Aging Lothario Bill Murray an Eyeful in Broken Flowers
—P.J. Soles Establishes a Key Horror Movie Trope in John Carpenter's Halloween
—Can We Talk About Linnea Quigley's Barbie Doll Crotch in Return of the Living Dead?
—Innocent Blood Finds John Landis Trying to Get His American Werewolf Mojo Back
—The Insane Japanese Horror Movie House Features Equally Insane Nudity
—Howard Stern's Private Parts Lives Up to Its Titular Promise
—Neve Campbell Wastes No Time Making Her Nude Debut in When Will I Be Loved
—Amy Locane Gets Carried Away from Melrose Place to Bang Dennis Hopper
—The Shape of Water Opens with Sally Hawkins Masturbating in the Tub
—Jennifer Jason Leigh Gets the Drop on Bridget Fonda in Single White Female
—Monique Gabrielle Ensures Bachelor Party is an Affair to Remember
—An Entire Generation of Men Saw Bare Breasts for the First Time in Caddyshack
—Maggie Gyllenhaal Holds Nothing Back in Secretary
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**Click Here to Read All Past Editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy**
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