Customer Reviews

Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste

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John Waters is fantastic. His true talents are not in his films, but in his writing. He can take the mundane and make it extraordinary, the creepy and strange and make it funny, and the ugliest of the ugly and make them things of beauty. Though he's an old man now, and his movies have gone mainstream, this book is a look back at his hilarious youth and all the mischief making that made him and the Dreamland cast stars.

This book covers the making of all his films, the biographies and interviews with his famed cast members, as well as his inpirations (ex. Rus Meyer). You enjoy their antics and feel as if you are right along side them in the making of their hilarious movies and tasteful adventures in bad taste. You can't put it down and are actually laughing out loud as you read. And he even writes about his family. How punk rock!

One thing he taught me to do was to love my hometown. People never seem to like their hometowns, whether they are in the most flashy of cities or the tiniest one horse town. Life is what you make of it, and John put the hairdo capital of the world (Baltimore) on the map with his hijinx and adoration of all things weird and wonderful. He takes his enemies and makes them into glowing monsters we can all throw rotten tomatos at in his absence. The creepy weirdos aren't monsters, they're glorious, misunderstood creatures we are to embrace. Look for the scariest, craziest places and have the most rip roaring time with the clientele. I've taken his advice and now have the ability to talk to anyone, because there are loads of lonely lunatics out there just dying to be friends with you.

John Waters is a very funny, albeit very warped, man, but if you're considering buying this book, you probably already knew that. In this book he tells his life story (up to about 1980, when this book was first written), focussing on the making of his movies; on his friends (such as Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey etc) who became his regular cast and crew; and on some of his more unusual hobbies and obsessions (such as his fascination with high profile criminal cases and his love of Baltimore); and it is every bit as hilarious as his movies (although slightly less disgusting). In addition, it also includes interviews with Divine and Waters' heroes, Russ Meyer and Hershiell Gordon Lewis; a brief biography of Edith Massey (the egg lady from "Pink Flamingos"); and a large number of black and white pictures.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, although I did find the interviews to be a bit tedious, particularly since I am not a fan of Meyer or Lewis (to me they felt like filler, put in solely to make the book a publishable length). Nevertheless, this book should appeal to all fans of Waters' work, and to anyone interested in the process of film making.

Much impressed by the gonzo grotesqueries of "Pink Flamingos," I picked up this book to learn more about the mind behind the madness. I wasn't disappointed-- you get John Waters' strange youth and the stories behind his early freak film experiments in the 1970s. Some of my favorite quotes:

"Parents should worry if their children haven't been arrested by the time they turn sixteen. Being a juvenile delinquent is a birthright and as much a part of a healthy adolescence as smoking cigarettes or getting pimples."

"Whenever I hear a friend casually mention an interest in a sporting event, I immediately reconsider our friendship. . . . All sports are contemptible."

I absolutely love how compleletely unconcerned young Waters was with societal expectations. While most young boys worry about grades, sports, or the pretty girl, young Waters fetishized the street-fighting bad girls and ditched school to drop acid and watch trashy low-budget horror films. And best of all, his alternative education seems to have worked out wonderfully for him, as he gathers an appreciative cult of like-minded freaks around him and takes the world of underground cinema by storm!

I was hoping to learn more about John Waters, the man, when I bought this book, and I was far from disappointed. This book is a great memoir of his life from start to finish, with lots of juicy inside info on all of his films. Throughout the book the reader meets all of the outrageous and delightfully politically incorrect characters that inhibit his movies and his life. There are lots of inside stories about Mink Stole, Divine, and everyone else ever seen in a Waters film, as well as the sweet low-down on that famous poop scene as well everything else you've ever wondered about. Waters is surprisingly honest about all sorts of rude and criminal acts that I'd never have known about if I hadn't read it. Underneath it all he shines through as a lovable guy who adores his hometown of Baltimore as well as the genre of trashy movies. If you love Waters, or even don't particularly like him but want to know more about him anyway, you must read this book.

This book would be an entertaining read for anyone, not just John Waters fans prior to reading. I literally laughed out loud several times. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer!

This is a pretty fun read if you know you like John Waters and want some back ground info from a point of view only he could share. I got half way through it before I was on overload though. I went to a intense Waters-heavy period where I watched his movies, documentaries, books, interviews and so forth so it was a bit of over kill reading this book during that time.

This is one wild book! If you have a twisted sense of humor (like me!) you will be laughing your butt off.

Before reading "Shock Value" I had never seen a John Waters film. Waters' draws you in and makes you laugh out loud. He is a brilliant comic and a wonderful story teller. I followed up Shock Value with his collected articles in "Crackpot!" which has one of the funniest chapters ever written about Christmas.
John Waters I am a fan of your excellent writing and hope you publish more!
-Black Scorpion
www.blackforpresident.com

John Waters is a very funny, albeit very warped, man, but if you're considering buying this book, you probably already knew that. In this book he tells his life story (up to about 1980, when this book was first written), focussing on the making of his movies; on his friends (such as Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey etc) who became his regular cast and crew; and on some of his more unusual hobbies and obsessions (such as his fascination with high profile criminal cases and his love of Baltimore); and it is every bit as hilarious as his movies (although slightly less disgusting). In addition, it also includes interviews with Divine and Waters' heroes, Russ Meyer and Hershiell Gordon Lewis; a brief biography of Edith Massey (the egg lady from "Pink Flamingos"); and a large number of black and white pictures.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, although I did find the interviews to be a bit tedious, particularly since I am not a fan of Meyer or Lewis (to me they felt like filler, put in solely to make the book a publishable length). Nevertheless, this book should appeal to all fans of Waters' work, and to anyone interested in the process of film making.