Waters’s open-minded parents

The cult filmmaker John Waters got lucky with his parents, said Tim Teeman in The Observer (U.K.). His mother was a Catholic housewife, his father a respectable Baltimore businessman, yet they were proud of their transgressive son. His film Pink Flamingos, which featured the obese transvestite Divine, was funded by Waters Sr.—though he wisely opted never to see it. “My dad did see A Dirty Shame (2004). Afterwards he said, ‘It’s funny, but I hope I never see it again’—a great review from a parent. My mother asked what it was about. I said, ‘Sexual addiction,’ and she said, ‘Maybe we’ll die before that one comes out.’” When Waters told his parents he was gay, they merely sighed with relief. “They were scared I was going to say I was a necrophiliac or something.” His father died in 2009, but his mother lives near him in Baltimore. “My parents were married for 60 years. They never had a fight. They were the perfect example of a good marriage. Now my mother wants me to get married. She’ll say, ‘Why aren’t you married to that nice friend?’ who is usually a successful guy.” But at 67, he has no desire for respectability. “I don’t want to imitate the traditions of heterosexual people. I hate weddings. They make me uneasy.”

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