A popular filmmaker walked onto the stage of Page Auditorium in front of about 500 people Tuesday night and threatened to perform the entire score of "Oklahoma!"
John Waters, author and director of such comedies as "Female Trouble," "Hairspray" and "Serial Mom," spoke about his obsessions with film and American pop culture in a raucous and rambling discussion.
"Life is nothing if you're not obsessed about something," Waters said. Waters' films and his odd style of comedy, which he considers "joyously obscene," have been deemed vulgar and tasteless by both film critics and pro-family groups.
"I hate how `family' has become sort of a code word for censorship," he said.
Waters' offbeat interpretations of suburbia and the people who reside there stem from a desire to challenge his audiences.
"I'm proud that I've made trash one inch more respectable," he said. "I've always made films about people's limits and about liberals' limits. Usually liberals actually have greater limits."
Waters' obsession with film and culture began in childhood, when he was mesmerized by "The Howdy Doody Show."
"My parents finally took me to see the show and there were about five Howdy Doodys lying around and I couldn't see because the cameras were in the way and Buffalo Bob was mean to me and I thought, `It's all a big lie, and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."'
Waters would also visit the library to find channels for his undying curiosity and fascination with the offbeat.
"Whatever I would look up--sexual perversion,'drug abuse'--it would always say see librarian.' After a while I figured out where thesee librarian' shelf was and would take the books when the librarian wasn't looking."
Waters said he believes that books can serve as a powerful remedy to juvenile crime.
"For violent kids, give them books so violent that they'll be shocked. After all, it is virtually impossible to commit a crime while reading a book."
As an adult, one way Waters has satiated his craving for the sensationalistic is by attending famous court cases such as Watergate and the Patty Hearst trial, which he coined "a criminal Woodstock--people were camping out for two or three days to get inside." His interest in trials has waned recently, though.
"O.J. ended my obsession with trials. If he's guilty, it's an uninteresting case. If he's innocent, he's merely a sports figure. Court TV [ended my obsession], too. It's no big deal to actually be at the trials now."
Having started his filmmaking career with an eight millimeter film shot on the roof of his parents' house, Waters encouraged his audience to spurn ambitions of making money.
"When you're in your 20s, you should want to kill the rich, not be rich. Wait till your 40s before you become rich."
Waters also addressed America's other great obsession--sex. Waters warned his audience from having casual sex in the age of AIDS.
"Sex is just instinct, and instinct is vaguely uncool. You didn't think it up," he said.
People should try to stretch the molds of sexual stereotypes, Waters said, regardless of their sexual orientation.
"If you're a straight man, go to a gay men's bar. The prettiest, smartest women are always faghags. If you're a gay man, go to a sports event with your gay friends and act as flamboyant as you can. Go out and scare people."
Waters ended his speech by revealing what he wishes to accomplish most in life.
"The only goal I have left in life is to star in the Don Knotts story, if they make one."
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