John Waters
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SAL Presents

John Waters

Past Event: Tuesday, June 3, 2008

At Benaroya Hall — S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

Co-presented by Seattle International Film Festival.

John Keats assures us that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all ye know on earth.” The films of cultural juvenile delinquent John Waters see beauty and truth in trailer-trash junkscapes and the outrageous, disgusting doings of polite society’s outcasts, “the filthiest people alive.”

Born to a prosperous Baltimore family in 1946, Waters was raised Catholic, but “flushed” the religion’s strictures out of his sensibility as a teenager, though he appreciated the way Catholicism “increased my attraction to forbidden things.” Living in conformist mid-century suburban comfort, young Waters was homosexual and considered himself a beatnik. His patron saint was the gay convicted thief and author Jean Genet, whose words “the most sordid signs are the signs of grandeur” could be Waters’ credo.

Like the French Surrealists, Waters believes there’s something liberating about being jolted out of our comfort-zone trances by artistic experiences that meld bizarre juxtapositions, transgressive sex and violence, dirty words, and grotesquely exaggerated emotions.

Waters devotedly follows the Tao of Trash, but he also worships Hollywood glamour and celebrity, and his love of both sleaze and style fuse in the “gender blur” that is Divine. Nothing human is foreign unto Waters, and he wants to broaden and deepen our connection to our fellow creatures, even if they’re flamboyant 300-pound blonde-bouffant drag queens in too-tight dresses. As Waters tried his hand at making short films in the mid-1960s, he envisioned his corpulent, cross-dressing neighbor Glenn Milstead as Divine, high priestess of his trash aesthetic and female archetype of Waters’ cinematic universe. As Waters’ films grew to feature length, Divine became the superstar of the director’s repertory company, the Dreamlanders. Divine/Milstead died in 1988, but he contributed the most iconic image of Waters’ oeuvre as he cheerfully ate poodle poop in the final frames of Pink Flamingos (1972).

Waters’ films are driven by an “us-versus-them,” hip-versus-square dynamic in which being bad is a good, and the minority outsiders who embrace their “neuroses and obsessions” are the cool ones who emerge as winners. The director’s satirical jabs at middle-class suburban values struck a chord with disaffected late-1960s youth, and a cult quickly coalesced for John Waters’ midnight screenings. As the broader 1970s counterculture blossomed, Waters’ underground gems were discovered by cognoscenti who appreciated his aesthete’s stance: the way this highly intelligent, elegant man was choosing to be trashy.

Though Waters’ films teem with depraved characters and grossly offensive behavior that would shock a church congregation or the P.T.A., what’s most shocking about Waters’ sensibility is his benevolence. Even his most biting and edgy productions project a playful affection for all his characters, even “hideous yuppies.” As he says, “I make fun of things I like.”

Waters’ medium was repugnant to many, but his themes were serious: class distinctions, racial tension, desperate housewives, religious fanaticism, gender roles, drug-taking, teen pregnancy, and abortion. Mainstream Hollywood eventually recognized the sophisticated irony of his vision and funded more ambitious projects like the film Hairspray (1988), which became an award-winning Broadway hit. Millions of people were now being stung by Waters’ sensibility, but fans of his early High Filth period accused him of being too mellow in his middle age and diluting his subversiveness with sweetness. Still, Waters lives to shock, and the eyes of even his longtime professional collaborators popped wide open when he roared back with his NC-17-rated 2004 A Dirty Shame, in which the uptight suburbs are invaded by a sex saint and his apostles of perversion.

Over the past four decades Waters has taught film classes in prisons and been a cinematographer, film editor and composer. He has acted and appeared in 100 films and TV shows, and published eight books and exhibited his photographic artwork around the world. He’s written and directed sixteen films and is working on his seventeenth, Fruitcake. Will it be ferocious or temperate? All we know is that Waters will be Waters, and the movie will be funny as hell. Aglow with the Joy of Trash, the man with the pencil-thin mustache is smiling.

Selected Work – Filmography

Writer/Director
Fruitcake (2008) — in production
A Dirty Shame (2004)
Cecil B. DeMented (2000)
Pecker (1998)
Serial Mom (1994)
Cry-Baby (1990)
Hairspray (1998)
Polyester (1981)
Desperate Living (1977)
Female Trouble (1974)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
The Diane Linkletter Story (1969)
Mondo Trasho (1969)
Eat Your Makeup (1968)
Roman Candles (1966)
Hag in a Black Leather Jacket (1964)

Writer
Hairspray (2007; also executive producer)
This Filthy World (2006)

Event Details

Benaroya Hall — S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium

200 University Street
Seattle, WA 98101

View directions.

Transportation & Parking

This event will be held in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, the largest event space at Benaroya Hall. 

Benaroya Hall is located at 200 University Street, directly across Second Avenue from the Seattle Art Museum.

By Car

  • From Southbound I-5
    Take the Union Street exit (#165B). Continue onto Union Street and proceed approximately five blocks to Second Avenue. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.
  • From Northbound I-5
    Exit left onto Seneca Street (exit #165). Proceed two blocks and turn right onto Fourth Avenue. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Union Street. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.
  • From Northbound I-5 via Westbound I-90
    Take the 2C exit for I-5 North. Follow signs for Madison Street/Convention Place and merge right onto Seventh Avenue. Turn left onto Madison Street. Proceed three blocks and turn right onto Fourth Avenue. Continue four blocks. Turn left onto Union Street. Continue two blocks. Turn left onto Second Avenue. The Benaroya Hall parking garage will be on your immediate left. The garage entrance is on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street.

By Public Transit (Bus & Light Rail)

Benaroya Hall is served by numerous bus routes. Digital reader boards along Third Avenue display real-time bus arrival information. For details and trip planning tools, call Metro Rider Information at 206.553.3000 (voice) or 206.684.1739 (TDD), or visit Metro online. The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, served by light rail, has a stop just below the Hall (Symphony Station).

Parking

The 430-car underground garage at Benaroya Hall provides direct access from the enclosed parking area into the Hall via elevators leading to The Boeing Company Gallery. Enter the garage on Second Avenue, just south of Union Street. Maximum vehicle height is 6’8″. ChargePoint charging stations are available for electric vehicles. Visit the Benaroya Hall website for event pricing.

Parking is also available at:

  • The Cobb Building (enter on University Street between Third and Fourth avenues).
  • The Russell Investments Center (enter on Union Street between First and Second avenues).
  • There are many other garages within a one-block radius of Benaroya Hall, along with numerous on-street parking options.

Accessibility

Open Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where a captioning screen displaying the words that are spoken or sung is placed on stage. This option is present at every event at Benaroya Hall in our 2021/22 Season.

Closed Captioning is an option for people who have hearing loss, where captioning displays the words that are spoken or sung at the bottom of the video during an online event. Captioning is available for all online events; click the “CC” button to view captions during the event.

Assistive Listening Devices (ALDs) are devices that people with hearing loss use in conjunction with their hearing device (hearing aids or cochlear implants). Benaroya Hall has an infrared hearing system, which transmits sound by light beams. Headsets are available in The Boeing Company Gallery coat check and the Head Usher stations in both lobbies.

Sign Language Interpretation is available upon request for Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals for both in-person and online events. To make a request for interpretation, please contact us at boxoffice@lectures.org or 206.621.2230×10, or select “Sign Language Interpretation” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process and we will contact you to confirm details. Please note: we appreciate a two-week advance notice to allow us time to secure interpretation.

Wheelchair Accessible Seating and Accessible Restrooms are available in all sections at our venues, and our venues are fully accessible to ticket holders with physical mobility concerns. Among other features, Benaroya Hall has designated parking spaces adjacent to elevators in their parking garage. Elevators with Braille signage go to all levels within the Hall. To reserve seating for a specific mobility concern, you may select “Wheelchair Accessible or Alternative Seating Options” during ticket checkout, and we will contact you to confirm details. For more details on their accessibility features, click here.

Guide and service dogs are welcome.

Gender neutral restrooms are available.

We are pleased to offer these accessibility services at our venues, and they are provided at no additional cost to ticket holders. Please contact us with any questions and feedback about how we can be more accessible and inclusive. Our Patron Services Manager is available at boxoffice@lectures.org, or Tuesday-Friday, from 12 noon–5 p.m., at 206.621.2230×10.

For more accessibility information, please head to lectures.org/accessibility. If you would like to make accessibility arrangements you do not see listed here, please contact our box office or select “Other Accommodations” from the Accessibility section during your ticket checkout process, and we will contact you to confirm details.