Photo: Greg Gorman
Famed auteur and celebrated master of camp John Waters might seem like an unlikely Christmas mascot. What does the director of Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Cry-Baby have to do with Kris Kringle, after all? But as it turns out, the holiday fits right in with Waters’ wacky ideology.
“I just like the extremes of Christmas,” says Waters. “I like how crazy it is. You can’t not spend money, you can’t avoid it.”
This weekend, Waters will once again bring his one-man show A John Waters Christmas to Nashville, wherein the self-proclaimed “People’s Pervert” will tell Yuletide anecdotes and more. He’ll also stop by Third Man Records, where he’ll sign copies of “Make Trouble,” a 7-inch he put out via Jack White’s record label earlier this year. The 7-inch features Waters reading an excerpt from his book, also titled Make Trouble. The Scene recently spoke via phone with Waters about his Third Man release, his relationship with Christmas and more.
You recently released a 7-inch single via Jack White’s Third Man Records, which is of course based here in Nashville. It features you reading a commencement-speech that you gave at Rhode Island School of Design, which is also in your book Make Trouble, correct?
It’s the whole commencement speech, and then it’s got some bonus material too, yeah.
How did that come to pass? Were you and Jack White fans of one another?
I’m a fan, and I’ve talked to him before, and he tried to get me involved in a couple other projects. Ian Brennan, who’s my promoter for the Christmas tour, knew him or something. He does weird records himself. He’s won the Grammy ... for world music. So that’s how it happened, and I just loved the idea of it. First of all, it was a book called Make Trouble, which was my commencement speech that I gave at RISD. I just liked the idea of having vinyl out. I’d had a couple CDs out, I’ve had all my soundtracks to my movies, I’ve had Hairspray, I’ve had Cry-Baby the Musical. And it was just great to have vinyl again, because I think Hairspray — my movie soundtrack did come out on vinyl at one point. That was probably the only one that did, because when Pink Flamingos finally came out, the music, it was later, on the 25th anniversary. So that was on CD.
So you’re diversifying your vinyl catalog.
It’s for my street cred! I hitchhike, I have vinyl [laughs].
I watched the video of your commencement speech, and I think there are a lot of really valuable nuggets of advice in there —
Well, it was also written before Trump. So in weird ways, it seems more apropos — when that was written, [Trump’s presidency] hadn’t happened yet.
One thing I found particularly interesting was that you say people should seek out the films that get bad reviews, or talk to people they disagree with politically, and so on. Is that something you find you’re still able to do?
Oh yeah! Well, it’s even hard these days, because even The Wall Street Journal has editorials against Trump [laughs]. I still read their editorials, because a lot of times I violently disagree with them, but I think they’re smartly written. But you’ve gotta — I’m not a separatist, I always believe in trying to make the enemy laugh and your opponents laugh. And so you can’t do that unless you know how they think.
In order to disarm them, you have to know where they’re coming from?
Yeah, and they can do the same thing to me. Whenever I do the Bill Maher show I always try to hang around with who the right-wing people are, just because I never meet them. Same thing whenever Fox News ever asks me to go on, I go, just because I want to be in enemy territory sometimes. They’re always very respectful and nice to me.
Another thing I valued in your speech was the concept of safe spaces and trigger warnings being —
Well, I agree you have to be careful what you say in the workplace, but there is a point where when you say, “Nice dress!” you’re arrested [laughs].
After all, isn’t offensiveness kind of your stock-in-trade?
No, but I’ve always been politically correct. I’m a radical feminist, I love women who hate men, I hate men who hate women. I am politically correct, and people laugh in my face when I say that, but seriously, I think I am in a way. Because my political values have always been, “Mind your own business and don’t bother other people.” Isn’t that politically correct?
Throughout your career you’ve normalized things that people might’ve thought were radical at that point.
And today, I mean, trigger warnings — that’s just rich-kid schools. They don’t have them in poor-kid schools, I don’t think. And this year at Christmas, if you leave somebody coal in their stocking, that could be a compliment to good little rich Republican kids. Things change.
You’re bringing A John Waters Christmas to Nashville again, and that’s something you’ve toured with quite a bit in the past. At this point, you’re kind of being associated with Christmas a bit.
Yeah, I’m Johnny Mathis — the alternative Johnny Mathis.
Well, considering your affinity for costumes and characters and all the rest, I thought you might be more of a Halloween guy.
No, actually, if I had to wear a Halloween costume or die, I would choose death. I used to go out as a teenager, and my father would say, “It’s not Halloween, you know.” “But it is, Dad, it is.” I see people on Halloween coming home alone drunk waiting for the buses dressed as half a horse, and I always feel so bad for them. And Halloween now has just turned into — I don’t know, it used to be gay Christmas. Now even the Halloween parade is where families and tourists come in to watch gay people and be happy [laughs]. I don’t know, even that gets on my nerves. And now it’s about money. Although, in New York — I was in New York for Halloween — and it’s amazing the amount of money they spend, and the houses have much better taste in Halloween decorations. The worst kind are inflatable ones. They’re the worst Christmas decorations too. But I always think that people have stabbed them, because they’re, like, deflated during the day. And people say, “No, that’s to save money on electric.” That, to me, is a Diane Arbus shot — a deflated Nativity scene. In the slush, especially if there’s slush on the ground.
Why Christmas? Why do you have a soft spot for Christmas?
Because it’s extreme. If someone says, “Merry Christmas,” some people could say, “Excuse me, I don’t believe in the virgin birth.” That would be a fair answer, I think, because not everybody believes in that. And the people that do believe in it act like everyone has to believe in it. So I like Christmas, but I get why some people hate it.
I just like the extremes of Christmas — I like how crazy it is. You can’t not spend money, you can’t avoid it. You have to see family. Even if you are in a religion that doesn’t pay any attention to it, then you just feel really prejudiced against, you get left out. They don’t even want your money. That’s the ultimate American hate crime — they don’t even want your money.
I saw a video of a previous John Waters Christmas performance when you were telling an anecdote about yourself in elementary school, having a friend in class who liked to color outside the lines —
Oh yeah, then I said, I talked about him to my mother so much, and then [the teacher said to her], “That’s your son.” That the one you mean? I was creating a character for myself very early, and that’s probably where it did come from.
Do you feel like you’ve always presented an exaggerated version of yourself to the public?
No, it’s the only version.
You’re 100 percent unfiltered at all times?
Pretty much, yeah, it is the real me. Certainly, I don’t talk like that straight for 70 minutes when I’m with you. But yes, I believe everything I say in there, completely. Yes.
Do you have a favorite Christmas story, whether a personal one or a tale you like?
Well, I have a lot of them. I have this friend who told me, “You should really be careful if you go visit a graveyard on Christmas, ’cause I used to go when I was a junkie and wait, and when people were putting flowers on the graves I’d run in their car and steal their pocketbook.” [Laughs] And I always was shocked by that, but I thought, “Wow, I’d never thought of that, I could fall for that.” You know what I mean?
I knew another one that used to tell me that he would, in San Francisco, go in department stores, and he said, “I hate waiting in line, so I would just start little Kleenex fires.” What? Kleenex fires? I saw an article about it later after he told me that he would do that all the time just so he could move up to the front of the line. He said, “They go right out, but people panic.” I said, “Well that’s a trick I haven’t seen about Christmas shopping — just set little Kleenex fires on the counters, and then people move, and you get up in front of the line.” So this kind of obscure knowledge is important.
The outsider’s guide to Christmas shopping, I guess?
Well no, I’m an insider now. No matter what your politics are, don’t you think that Obama and Trump would both call themselves outsiders?
I suppose.
OK, and so who wants to be an outsider when everybody does? I want to be an insider, which used to be a dirty word. Then you get in where the power is and fuck it up. It’s more exciting.
