A Dirty Shame

My first encounter with John Waters was the film HairSpray. I really liked that movie. It was goofy, but sincere, and it made for some pretty sharp commentary if you were watching with a close eye. After that I saw Pecker and Cecil B. DeMented, and I became a fan. When I heard about A Dirty Shame, I had wanted to see it, but I knew it wouldn't open in any theater around where I lived, so I had to skip it. I forgot about it for a few years, until Netflix came along.

Thank you, Netflix.

A Dirty Shame, like many of Waters' movies, is a critique of social norms. However, this film extends far beyond his other recent works, heading back towards Pink Flamigos (in spirit, not in content). In a small suburban town, there is a war going on between the “neuters” and the “sex addicts,” with one demanding their neighborhood be brought back to decency, and the other searching for total and absolute sexual freedom. Our heros in this film are, of course, the sex addicts.

To become a sex addict, you have to suffer an accidental concussion. Each addict has a distinct fetish, each one incredibly bizarre, such as the policeman's man-child fetish (he enjoys dressing up like a baby), and one couple's love of “roman showers” (vomiting on one another). By forcing the audience to deal with these strange but mostly harmless fetishes, Waters moves to make sex less taboo, all the while revealing what a joke it all really is.

In the film, sex is seen as a healing force. Johnny Knoxville plays RayRay, a “sexual healer” who has the power to make flowers grow, float in the air, and raise the dead, all through sex acts. Knoxville's character, before he became a sex addict, was just a car mechanic and general hick. This is a nod towards the idea that over-acknowledgment of sexuality is a sign of lower intelligence. However, this over-acknowledgment is redeemed through the acts of healing that Knoxville performs, and sex turns back into something positive.