The Nuclear Family in 70’s Exploitation Cinema – and Why Pink Flamingos is a Queer Classic

In 1972 and 1974, Pink Flamingos and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre were two of many American movies that exploited the nations fear of social and moral collapse. Both films depicted families living in violation of our most basic ideas of dignity. So why does Divine, and her family of misfits, inspire generation upon generation of queers and outcasts, whilst Leatherface continues to inspire terror?

I would wholeheartedly argue that Pink Flamingos, the breakout hit for both director John Waters and the original Drag Superstar Divine, is the most important queer film of all time. Its reputation is legendary, the level of disgust it inspires infamous. It follows Divine and her misfit family, who are hiding out in a trailer somewhere outside Baltimore. They are forced to put their peaceful existence of hold when Connie and Raymond Marble attempt to steal Divine’s title of ‘Filthiest Person Alive’. What results is an ever-escalating tornado of taboo-breaking acts, including singing sphincters, bestiality, incest, cannibalism and coprophagia.  As a 14-year-old queer, I stumbled across Pink Flamingos deep-diving amongst 70’s exploitation cinema, drawn to at the time by a teenage morbid curiosity with the dangerous and controversial. It is in this context that I think Pink Flamingos’ power as a piece of cinema, primarily as a piece of queer art, can be assessed.

Pink Flamingos, though being a comedy first and foremost, shares more in common with the horror exploitation films of the day, just as this particularly violent form of horror began to take precedence in the American psyche. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), with its send-up of the archetypal American institutions (the nuclear family, the blue-collar worker etc.) and it’s depictions of the most abject acts imaginable – cannibalism, auto-cannibalism (which includes the ingestion of one’s own flesh, blood and faeces) murder and incest (implied in Massacre, literally and starkly depicted in Pink Flamingos) is an obvious comparison. It’s grimy aesthetic, a result of its shoe-string budget, and disarming editing choices (long drawn out shots that never cut away, music never laying alongside dialogue and vie-versa) gives it a feel similar to The Last House on the Left (1972), Wes Craven’s highly controversial debut (he would later go on to create Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream).Both films arrived during years of great turmoil for Americans, and much art at the time struggled to reconcile with what was seen as an almost apocalyptic decline in the West, America specifically. Starting with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, trailing through the rise of civil rights (including the assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King), and the Watergate scandal, which exposed the corruption at the top levels of Government, the years of economic prosperity during the 1950’s, and the ‘Peace and Love’ movement of the early to mid-1960’s crumbled with breakneck rapidity.

What is perhaps most shocking of all, when comparing these two films (and I am not the first to do so) is that Massacre, despite its reputation as one of the most violent and bloodied films of all time, is very skimpy on blood and guts, creating sense of chaos through strong performances and clever editing. The wounds are hidden, the pain implied, no matter how debased the acts become (the girl being placed on the meat hook is such a punch to the gut you don’t register the lack of blood). By comparison, Pink Flamingos is notorious for hiding nothing – chickens are slaughtered, women are forcibly inseminated and, yes, Divine does eat dog shit. So why do we, as queer people, see Pink Flamingos as so empowering, yet no-one is modelling their look on Leatherface? Or listing the murderers in Last House… as cultural icons?

Well firstly, it is worth noting that there is a sub-division of the horror community that does non-ironically root for, and sometimes identify with, the slasher villain. This is evidenced the wealth of merchandise surrounding the likes of Freddy Kreuger, Jason Voorhees and, yes, Leatherface. The explanation for as such can be found in Sigmund Freud’s ideas of repression. These monsters operate outside of the realm of basic repression, which we all (should) experience. These are the repressions that separate us from animals – we know not to kill, or to maim, because we can comprehend other’s feelings. But by extension, movie monsters exist outside the additional rules of society, what is known as surplus repression. In the west this includes prescribing to the ideas of heterosexist, patriarchal, capitalist society - and in these early slashers, the villains are certainly not bogged down by families, mortgages and full-time jobs. The ways in which movie monsters exist outside of the traditional structures of society, and how this may lead to them becoming unlikely pioneers for outcasts everywhere, are numerous and it is a topic I’d like to cover in greater detail another time. But how this relates to Pink Flamingos is that this is the crux of why Divine, despite the wicked acts she commits throughout the film, became an instant queer icon.

What separates Divine from the slasher villain, however, is that she is defined not by vehemently shunning societal norms entirely, but by reinterpreting them on her own terms. The most obvious example of this is the family dynamic of the central characters. Divine is fiercely protective and maternal towards her mother Edie and her son Crackers, and wholly accepts their respective quirks, whether it be her asking her mother how she wants her beloved eggs cooked (“No, Babs, it’s sunny outside, I want them sunny side up! You know how I like them Babs”), or her genuine motherly excitement knowing her son is bringing a date home with him – though she must know what that entails (chicken fucking, as it happens). She fulfils a dual role as both ‘mother’ and ‘father’, and she is shown performing a combination of both ‘patriarchal’ and ‘matriarchal’ duties – she is the family’s main breadwinner, homeowner and cook – with equal jollity.

It may be the scat, sex and silliness that make Pink Flamingos a dark-comedy classic, but it is certainly this central family dynamic that makes is resonate with a queer audience. The acts of violence Divine commits against the Marbles are done purely in self-defence, and only once her family are pushed to the limit. Sure, the Marbles attempt to steal her title of ‘Filthiest Person Alive’ ruffles Divine’s feathers (her reaction to the “Happy Birthday, Fatso” in the Marble’s birthday card is perhaps the most underrated moment of the film), but it is the burning down of their home, and the call to the police, that drives Divine over the edge. The only other characters who feel Divine’s wrath (if you don’t include the chicken) are the police who come to raid her home. The idea of protecting one’s home is central to American individualism – it is why gun reform, in large part, has been so hard to achieve – and therefore Divine’s reaction the Marble’s assault is not that out of line with how a regular American citizen is expected to behave when their family’s under threat.

This protectiveness of her home and of her family is not the full picture, however. Compare, for example, the central families in both Pink Flamingos and Texas Chainsaw Massacre – the Johnsons and the Sawyers. On a surface level, they have many similarities, as aforementioned. Some viewers of the film may even sympathise with Leatherface to an extent – after all, these teenagers keep breaking into his house, and due to a surprisingly nuanced performance from Gunnar Hansen, Leatherface’s panic is palpable – much like Divine, he resorts to violence to protect his home. Also, the Sawyer family represent aspects of the traditional American family – there is the Drayton, the ‘father’ figure, breadwinner and secondary patriarchal figure after the decrepit Grandpa. Then there is Nubbins, the delinquent son. As Grandma is dead in the attic, that leaves for Leatherface to be forced into the matriarchal role, as the one who prepares the family dinner (human meat, naturally). Leatherface is mocked and degraded by his brothers using misogyny coded language and is even forced to wear a more feminine apron and wig when dinner is prepared. What we have here is a family that fails, and ultimately decays into madness, because of its inability to move beyond their surplus repression even when they can override basic repression. The result is a toxic mix of blind traditionalism and raw brutality, and it is ultimately their reverence for Grandpa (whom Drayton consistently states to be ‘the best at killin’’, despite his inability to land a fatal blow on Sally’s head) that leads to Sally’s escape and Nubbin’s demise.

Contrast this with the Johnsons – this is a family whose repression, or lack thereof, is far harder to define. This is because, again, the elements of traditional western ideals are still represented, but in an ironic twist, the characters in Pink Flamingos know when to break the rules, when to adapt them, and in certain cases hold certain traditions close to their hearts. They make a better job of separating themselves from societal restrictions than the Sawyers – Drayton Sawyer runs a local gas station where he serves human meat for profit, and it is inferred by Nubbins that the family all used to work at the local slaughterhouse before it was closed – and this is where their penchant for cannibalism becomes commonplace. The Sawyers are unable to completely disconnect from Western capitalism, the underpinning of much social and moral inequality in the West. This inability to break free of such a traditionally structured way of living permeates their home, leading to their increasing insanity. The late 60’s and early 70’s saw a rapid decline in financial prosperity in America, the likes of which not seen since the Great Depression (Europe at this time is still reeling from World War II, and in equally bad financial straits), and unemployment was rampant. The system was letting people down, not just socially and morally (again, violence soaked the media landscape at this time) but now financially. Compare this to Divine, who lives as a vagabond, travelling around incognito, stealing what she needs and living frugally when necessary. By removing themselves from the capitalist power structure, the Johnson’s achieve personal freedom – in direct contradiction to the ideas of American individualism, which suggests that personal freedom is acquired through hard work, climbing to the top of the system to accumulate financial stability. This key difference between the two families – a family that is driven mad by its inability to completely detach itself from Western influence, and a family that knows where to draw the line to protect their individual freedom – is where we can fully understand why Pink Flamingos is such a queer classic.

Of course, many would point to the crude humour, the gender-bending, or even the outrageous fashion. But I would argue that Pink Flamingos ultimately offers escapism, and a solution. Pink Flamingos was released in 1972. Homosexuality was legalised but had yet to be stripped of its designation as a mental illness in the DSM - II (this would not happen until 1974 – and even then ‘sexual orientation disturbance’ remained on the books until 1987). Queer people were still being kicked out of their homes, murdered in astronomical numbers, and the subject of much vitriol in the press. In the eyes of many, they were perhaps no better than those who committed sexually deviant acts such as bestiality or incest. However, and this is where Pink Flamingos flips the script,  this family lives a perfectly happy, carefree life, only engaging in violence when the outside world ruptures their serene, if unconventional, existence.  This would be a cunning parable to make in any generation, but especially at the time of the films release. The film infers that personal liberty – the supposed American dream – could be achieved not by buying into the 'system', which at this time was inextricably tied to bloodshed, corruption and moral hysteria, but by distancing oneself from it as much as possible . The Sawyer family in Massacre highlight this divide – they, in clinging to the western ideas of capitalism, patriarchy and traditionalism, ultimately fall into brutality, a direct parallel to the violence characteristic of American society at this time. As America descends into chaos, the Sawyers are dragged down with it. Divine, as a mother and as a daughter, rejects traditionalism in favour of the pursuit of happiness and personal fulfilment – whereas all the Sawyer children are forced to go into slaughterhouses or abattoirs, Divine exclaims that her son Crackers would indeed look stunning as a blonde.

Within Pink Flamingos itself, the counterpoint to the Johnsons are the Marbles. At first glance they seem strange foil for Divine and her crew, being equally obsessed with sleaze and kink. They even have a family business kidnapping girls, having them forcibly inseminated, and selling the babies to lesbian couples. However, this is where they align themselves more closely to the Sawyers than the Johnsons – though their methods may be nontraditional, they are also fully committed to a capitalist, monetarily influenced system. This is what makes them the villain of the piece – their understanding of filth is flawed because they see it as a means to social progression and financial gain, and in the process exploit others for their own benefit – in comparison to Divine, who does it for her own pleasure and to no-one else’s detriment. The fact that the Marbles sell the fruits of their exploitation exclusively to lesbian couples may be seen as Waters sly dig at queer people who want to live a hetero-normative ideal.

All this is why I would argue that Pink Flamingos is the most important queer film of all time, perhaps tied with Wizard of Oz. Which is strange, because Pink Flamingos addresses my one fatal issue with Oz – the fact that Dorothy returns home to Kansas. This does not, to me, reflect the notion that as queer people we get to choose our family. Pink Flamingos shows that we need not be restricted by a world of repression, menial traditionalism, leaving us open and vulnerable to changing whims of social and moral codes. As the early 70’s dragged anyone loyal to the conventions of Western Capitalism down an apocalyptic rabbit hole, Pink Flamingos suggested another way out, one that queer people above all noted as essential long before anyone else. In any case, just remember, that no matter what you family situation, cannibalism is never a viable solution.