John Waters

John Waters (born 1946) is a screenwriter, director, producer, and often acts in the movies he makes. After a series of low-budget midnight-movie cult classics such as Pink Flamingos, his first mainstream hit was 1988's Hairspray.^[1] In Hairspray, Baltimore's local TV dance show, the Corney Collins show, is for white kids only. But when Tracy Turnblad, a plus-size teenager from the wrong side of the tracks, becomes a regular on the show, she starts a movement towards integration.^[2] Hairspray was made into a Tony-award-winning Broadway musical,^[3] which inspired a new version of the movie in 2007, starring John Travolta as Tracy Turnblad's mother Edna.^[4]

In a 2007 interview with the Desert Sun, Waters said, "My films teach you to mind your own business, not judge people until you know the details and accept your neuroses...The messages of my films are actually pretty moral, if kind of clouded." ^[5]

References[edit]

1. ↑ IMDb: John Waters, retrieved 10/13/2008
2. ↑ IMDb: Plot summary for Hairspray, retrieved 10/13/2008
3. ↑ New York Magazine, Still Waters, by Ariel Levy, published Mar 24, 2008, retrieved 10/13/2008 [1]
4. ↑ IMDb: Hairspray (2007), retrieved 10/13/2008
5. ↑ The Desert Sun, John Waters still a few tricks up his sleeve, by Deborah Nichol, published October 12, 2007, retrieved 10/13/2008 [2]