Pink Flamingos + Drag Bingo

An infamous midnight-movie experience, Pink Flamingos is John Waters at his most transgressive, starring drag queen Divine in the ultimate cult celebration of bad taste.

Drag icon Divine stars as Babs Johnson, a wanted criminal hiding out with her degenerate family in a trailer outside of Baltimore. Babs revels in her notoriety as the ‘Filthiest person Alive’ but her crown is challenged by the sociopathic couple Raymond and Connie Marble (David Lochary and Mink Stole) who kidnap women in order to impregnate them. Babs vows to show the world who the filthiest person is and the scene is set for a series of transgressive taboo busting dares, one more shocking than the next.

Curator's note
John Waters' midnight movie classic introduced the world to practices people would soon prefer to forget. The film revels in shrimping (look it up!), incest, cannibalism and an all-time shocker of a finale, but its biggest triumph is making a star out of the legendary Divine.

The alter ego of Harris Glenn Milstead, Divine was part Jayne Mansfield, crossed with the narcissistic attitude of Elizabeth Taylor and the subtly of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo. Oft imitated but never matched, terms like drag and transgression don’t even come close to describing the force of nature that is Divine.