Pink Flamingos

Pink Flamingos (1976) is John Waters' notorious underground comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Shot by the Baltimore-based Dreamland studio on a twelve-thousand-dollar budget, the film grossed six million dollars and became the defining text of American transgressive cinema.

Divine plays Babs Johnson, a woman the tabloids have crowned "The Filthiest Person Alive." Connie and Raymond Marble — Mink Stole and David Lochary — run a black-market operation and covet that title. They launch a campaign to out-debase Babs and claim it for themselves, with Edith Massey completing the household as the egg-obsessed Edie. What follows is a deliberate assault on every convention of acceptable screen behaviour — Waters called it an exercise in poor taste and meant it as a compliment.

Banned in several countries and screened at film studies programmes worldwide, the picture remains a live provocation about taste, censorship and who gets to decide what is obscene. Stream Pink Flamingos (1976) online on iFILM.