Role Models [Hardcover]

John Waters (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 25, 2010

Here, from the incomparable John Waters, is a paean to the power of subversive inspiration that will delight, amuse, enrich—and happily horrify readers everywhere.

Role Models is, in fact, a self-portrait told through intimate profiles of favorite personalities—some famous, some unknown, some criminal, some surprisingly middle-of-the-road. From Esther Martin, owner of the scariest bar in Baltimore, to the playwright Tennessee Williams; from the atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair to the insane martyr Saint Catherine of Siena; from the English novelist Denton Welch to the timelessly appealing singer Johnny Mathis—these are the extreme figures who helped the author form his own brand of neurotic happiness.

Role Models is a personal invitation into one of the most unique, perverse, and hilarious artistic minds of our time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The director of the gross-out epic Pink Flamingos and other cinematic provocations salutes the people he finds inspiring—himself foremost among them—in these self-regarding essays. Waters's role models range from icons like Johnny Mathis and Tennessee Williams to a gay reality-porn auteur, a lesbian stripper called Lady Zorro, and ex-Charles Manson groupie and murderer Leslie Van Houten. When he pays attention to them, Waters produces vivid portraits of his subjects, especially those with really lurid backstories, but he's happier when the spotlight is on him and his studied outrageousness. He discusses celebrity (I've... gone out drinking with Clint Eastwood, and spent several New Year's Eve parties in Valentino's chalet in Gstaad, but what I like best is staying home and reading) and the graphic pornography on his walls, and regales readers with scatological scandals, disdaining religious beliefs while graciously tolerating people who hold them. In the end, Waters's war against the tyranny of good taste feels tired, his taboo-breaking rote, his kitsch-mongering snobbish (taken on a tour of the Vatican, he refuses to leave the gift shop and its hideously pious cards). (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

As familiar as Waters' obsessions have become over the years, writes the Onion AV Club, "he remains an affable, enthusiastic tour guide to the sort of beauty found only at the edges of good taste." Such beauty includes the profane, the violent, and the shocking, but it's par for the course for this once transgressive filmmaker and his insightful, obnoxious, and entertaining essays. Only the essay "Leslie," about Waters's friendship with Manson follower Leslie Van Houten, serving a life sentence for murder, raised debate. A few reviewers found the essay reflective, while others condemned Waters for dodging "the murky moral issues of her story" (Los Angeles Times). Role Models isn't for everyone--but even "dilettantes at liberty to skip around will find a lot to charm them" (New York Times Book Review).

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (May 25, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374251479
• ISBN-13: 978-0374251475
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Waters is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and visual artist best known for his cult films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Cecil B. DeMented. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Loads of Fun on Audio July 8, 2010

By Amanda J. Henning

Format:Audio CD

Waters is a fantastic narrator and his new book is absolutely hilarious (but also very touching at points). I've honestly been forcing anybody who rides in my car this week to listen to the section about Lady Zorro and I'll start forcing everybody to listen to the section on Esther Martin next week. Honestly, despite other reviews that talk about his trashy side, I'm amazed how sweet and kind he comes across. From one bleeding heart liberal to another, I absolutely love this book :)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thw World of Waters July 4, 2010

By Richard A. Jenkins

Format:Hardcover

John Waters always has elicited strong opinions from people and that seems evident here in the early reviews. Anyone who has seen or heard Waters being interviewed or seen him emcee a show will recognize the tone and style here. He rambles entertainingly through the book, with on-target observations that integrate references that range from the absurd to the refined. The chapters vary in their quality. Some passages are laugh out loud funny, but some sections drag. The chapter on Leslie Van Houten becomes rather tedious and didactic, in places, although Waters raises worthwhile questions about rehabilitation and the grandstanding of prosecutors. The section on his art collection betrayed perhaps a need to be taken seriously even as he collects pieces that most people who find academically interesting, at most. Waters' parents do not get their own chapter, but they are always present and come across as people who supported Waters' development and work in surprising ways while remaining very much the conventional parents of their time. At the same time, Waters confronts the problems and limitations of some of the eccentric Baltimore characters he had idolized, like Zorro, the lesbian stripper whose daughter somehow thrived despite a chaotic, problem-ridden environment. Despite focusing on role models, Waters creates a world where neither nature nor nurture seem to triumph. His conservative, conventional parents wound up with "The Pope of Filth" for a son, while Zorro winds up with an apparently very conventional, well-adjusted daughter. Waters lives in a world where the classic 1950s songs of Johnny Mathis co-exist with a fringe gay pornographer like Bobby Garcia, and Leslie Van Houten of the Manson Family.... Somehow the only really discordant note was the repeated mention of Elton John who seems neither fringe nor conventional, nor particularly interesting. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars This book will make you rethink your views on parole November 29, 2010

By Craig Rowland

Format:Hardcover

Role Models is John Waters's tribute to those who have influenced him throughout his life. I had already read two of his earlier books, Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters and Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste, so I knew what I was in for: I was ready to laugh myself silly.

Waters describes himself as "a cult filmmaker whose core audience, no matter how much I've crossed over, consists of minorities who can't even fit in with their own minorities.". One can see how the people who have influenced him the most fit in with this self-assessment.

The first major influence on John as a little boy was "Clarabell, the psychotic clown on The Howdy Doody Show, whose makeup later inspired Divine's, had been my role model.". One can't miss the similarities when comparing the two:

The chapter entitled Leslie is perhaps the most serious piece of work Waters has ever written. In it, he talks about his twenty-five-year friendship with Leslie Van Houten, the member of the Manson family who was sentenced to death for her role in the LaBianca murders in 1969. Waters makes a very convincing case for the parole of Van Houten, who has been incarcerated for over forty years. He also apologizes for exploiting the Manson family murders in his early film career:

"I am guilty, too. Guilty of using the Manson murders in a jokey, smart-ass way in my earlier films without the slightest feeling for the victims' families or the lives of the brainwashed Manson killer kids who were also victims in this sad and terrible case."

This was quite a revelation from Waters: that of guilt.... Waters has visited Van Houten on a regular basis at the California Institute for Women and is convinced that Van Houten has been mentally rehabilitated for decades and is in no danger of reoffending. The most surprising thing of all is Van Houten's sense of inner peace in all this. She seems resigned to live her life to the fullest, even though she may never be granted parole. I never thought I'd ever say this, but Van Houten's lawyers should have John Waters testify in her behalf at her next parole hearing. Waters never sweeps the LaBianca murders under the rug, and often identifies with their orphaned children, and how they must feel if they were to see their parents' murderer released. Nevertheless, it is a very convincing case to parole Van Houten, and made me review my own opinions on the matter.

Waters also talks about personalities from his hometown of Baltimore. One of them was the stripper known as Lady Zorro, whom he describes as "[having] a real rage she brought to the stage, which added a demented hostile sex appeal. An angry stripper with a history of physical and sexual abuse with a great body and the face of a man. Now there's a lethal combination...Zorro was so butch, so scary, so Johnny Cash. No actual stripping for her at that point [at the end of her burlesque career]; she just came out nude and snarled at her fans, 'What the f*** are you looking at?'".

Waters fondly remembers a Baltimore bar owner named Esther Martin: "the real reason I loved Esther right from the beginning was her mouth. No one in the world cussed more! She gave the phrase 'cursing a blue streak' a refinement that seemed almost noble. 'That motherf***ing c***s***ing son of a b***h' was used as a prefix to almost every name she uttered...Just a mention of Esther's foul language makes each sibling go into hilarious imitations of their mother's tirades. 'As my dear sainted mother would say'--Dick laughs and then mimics Esther's voice--'You're as worthless as a c**t full of cold p**s.' 'Sh** and fall back in it!'". I tell you, reading Waters's reminiscences about Lady Zorro and Esther had me laughing so hard during my work lunch breaks I could barely eat anything at all.

In the chapter entitled Bookworm, Waters writes about five of his favourite fiction authors. After I read this chapter I researched these authors and looked for their books and criticisms. Waters writes about one of his favourites:

"Try reading any novel by [Ivy] Compton-Burnett. She was English, looked exactly like the illustration on the Old Maid card, never had sex even once, and wrote twenty dark, hilarious, evil little novels between the years 1911 and 1969."

The chapter on art, entitled Roommates, was surprisingly boring. It would not have been so tedious to plow through if only Waters had included some photos of the works he was describing. There is nothing more boring to read than pages and pages of descriptions of paintings. Waters did make me laugh at this remark:

"I knew about Richard Tuttle's minimalist troublemaking and respected his early hostile establishment reviews, such as 'Less has never been less than this.' His bare plywood slat pieces nailed flat to the wall with just one thin side of the depth of the wood painted white were so beautiful, so simple, so plain, that I felt exhausted just imagining how complete the artist must have felt when he decided the work was finished."

In the final chapter, Waters tells of his childhood education at Catholic schools. I again felt like laughing so hard I could barely chew:

"I hated my Catholic high school, so I certainly never went back to a reunion, although I did get to comment to The Baltimore Sun, on the school's fifty-year anniversary, that the Christian Brothers and lay faculty there had 'discouraged every interest I ever had.' A friend who attended the reunion that year said he heard me called 'f**got' and 'pornographer' by some of my p***ed-off fellow classmates who had read my criticism, but I didn't mind. The only reason to attend any school reunion is to see how the people whom you had wanted to have sex with then look today. And I had already looked up those people's addresses and driven by their homes to stalk them years before."

And when talking about those wacky saints he learned about at school:

"Of course, there are some saints we do take very seriously. Saint Catherine of Siena is without a doubt the most insane of these and we have no choice but to honor her daily. Reading Holy Anorexia by Rudolph M. Bell, the best encyclopedia of deranged saints ever written, we learn that in Catherine's time (the 1300s) she was known as 'a person of considerable reputation for outstanding holiness'--in other words, nuts! At the peak of her career she 'urged the holy hatred of oneself' and advised others to 'build a cell in your mind that you can never escape.' She was a 'bottom' for God."

and I am still laughing over the poor girl who could never succeed here:

"Catherine organized a group of fellow child masochists who flagellated themselves daily. Well, I can understand that, too. I had a Horror House in our garage and I'd charge the neighborhood kids twenty-five cents to enter. After they gave me the money, I'd tell them to wait, and I'd go inside and then yell, "Okay, come in!" The little ticket buyers would group their way into the darkness and I would squirt them with a fire extinguisher (my dad's company sold them) and then kick them in the leg. They loved it. They even came back for more. I also used to play 'school' as a kid with the little girl who lived next door, and I was always the teacher and she was always the student. Every time we played I failed her, yet she still eagerly agreed to play every time I asked, fully knowing the results."

Role Models is John Waters's most serious written work. Without his name on the cover, one would never believe that the chapters on Leslie Van Houten, art, Johnny Mathis or Little Richard was written by him. If you love Waters's humour, and need a laugh like the original "Hairspray" on the printed page, this book does not disappoint. Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Time Well Spent with One of Your Most Interesting and Down to Earth Friends July 25, 2010

By Heyward

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is the first book I have read/listened to by John Waters (I got the audio book) and I haven't seen many of his films (I think just Pecker), but I have always loved his interviews on NPR's Fresh Air with Teri Gross. And, I think it is because I know him for his wonderfully personable conversational style and broad interrests (art, reading, creativity, music, people, etc, etc) that I decided to purchase this book and see what it had to offer.
Excellant. What a pleasant conversational way to hear about John's interresting personal life and his tastes through his appreciation of his role models. Yes, yes, we all know about his film exploits or public image with sex and shock, but if that was all he had to write about the book would feel very flat and two dimensional. The fact that he is so well rounded as a person and in his interests made this book my favorite of the year.
And, yes, there's plenty about sex, some wonderfully unihibited and some that is a little bit shocking for my taste. But, this just adds flavor to the soup.
Now, I'm just waiting while Amazon ships the next book I ordered from John's back catalog.