|
Bit 1
|
Pecker (Edward Furlong) is an aimless amateur photographer from suburban Baltimore who
continually snaps pictures of his family, friends and neighbours with a camera his mother (Mary Kay
Place) found for him in her thrift shop. His older sister (Martha Plimpton) works in a gay bar while
his younger one (Lauren Husley) has a strange eating disorder (just wait for the diagnosis). Grandma
"Memama" (Jean Schertler) performs miraculous things with a kitsch statue of the Virgin Mary that
have to be seen (and heard) to be believed. Dad works as a barman but is losing his clientele to the
new strip club over the road. Pecker's best friend, Matt (Brendan Sexton III), shoplifts and
skateboards, and his girlfriend, Shelly (Christina Ricci), runs the local laundromat.
|
|---|
|
Bit 2
|
After New York art dealer Rory Wheeler (Lili Taylor) happens upon an exhibition of Pecker's
photographs on the walls of the hamburger joint where he works, she takes his show to Manhattan
where he receives instant fame. Pecker's family and friends catch the bus to New York and they are
fêted by the art world intelligensia. Soon they become increasingly obsessed with exploiting Pecker's
talent and with patronising the "culturally-challenged" urban townfolk captured in his portraits. Rory
seems rather keen on Pecker and Shelly wants to return to her laundromat and the way things were
before...
|
|---|
|
Bit 3
|
Along the way Waters doesn't miss the opportunity to improve the vocabulary of those who see his
Pecker: "teabagging" refers to an erotic act, and again it has to be witnessed to be believed.
Along with the man who has a sexual attachment to a washing machine, a Vogue magazine
shoot using homeless people as models, and a couple of copulating rodents in a rubbish bin. When the
townsmen yell out, "WE WANT BUSH! WE WANT BUSH!", rest assured they're not demonstrating
for an ex-president or his politician son. All this and an eclectic soundtrack that includes "Doobie
Duck" (was that The Chipmunks?), and much more...
|
|---|
|
Bit 4
|
Pecker follows in the tradition of Waters's cult films (Pink Flamingos, Female
Trouble, Polyester, Hairspray) that celebrate the vulgarities of blue-collar
Americana, earning him the label 'The Pope of Trash'. However, when Shelly comes to see the gross
beauty in yellow urine-stained sheets in Pecker her words don't have quite the same ring as
any memorable quote delivered by Divine in the aforementioned flicks. Divine (1945-88) -- the
obnoxious loud fat gay drag queen coprophiliac comedienne with a penchant for overdoing everything
(not just her make-up) -- was the outrageous character actor who made Waters's signature films shine.
Pecker has cross-dressing bearded and pierced working-class lesbian strippers along with
cameos from upmarket photographers Cindy Sherman and Greg Gorman. Between these extremes,
Furlong and Ricci as the young leads play their rather tongue-in-cheek roles for occasional dry laughs.
However, they just don't make creatures like Francine Fishpaw (or stars like Divine to play them) any
more.
|
|---|
|
Bit 5
|
Waters's low-budget 1970s and 1980s films were much funnier and zanier and queerer than his more
highbrow and mainstream Pecker. Nonetheless, this clever quasi-autobiographical satire pays
homage to the film-maker's home town roots in Baltimore and ridicules art critics like those who
trashed or ignored his earlier films. The shapers of 'high' culture are exposed as corruptly on the nose,
while the fundamental integrity of the 'low' life people from the city's suburbs is valorised. In the end
though, Waters proves more of an equal opportunist when it comes to taking the piss: straights,
queers, femininity, masculinity, art critics, smalltown values, censorship, poverty, and wealth are all
eventually lampooned. In one scene an art critic calls Pecker "white and poor but not trash."
Similarly, the film Pecker celebrates whites of the under-employed class but despite brief
moments of hilarity their eventual revenge is just not trashy enough.
|
|---|
| |
Bit 6
|
Details
Pecker, by Polar Entertainment 1998.
Director & writer: John Waters.
Cinematography: Robert M. Stevens.
Editing: Janice Hampton.
Cast: Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Lili Taylor, Rorey Wheeler, Mary Kay Place, Martha Plimpton, Brendan Sexton III.
|
|---|
| |
Bit 7
|
Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Simon-Astley Scholfield. "Taking the Piss: John Waters's 'Pecker'." M/C Reviews 27 Nov. 1999.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/pecker.html>.
Chicago style:
Simon-Astley Scholfield, "Taking the Piss: John Waters's 'Pecker'," M/C Reviews 27 Nov. 1999,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/pecker.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Simon-Astley Scholfield. (1999) Taking the piss: John Waters's 'Pecker'. M/C Reviews 27 Nov. 1999.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/pecker.html> ([your date of access]).
|
|---|
|
|
![[image]](http://www.flf.com/pecker/images/front/opening4.gif)