Pink Flamingos in 1972 set a new benchmark in trash cinema, sealing a notorious reputation for director John Waters with one scene in particular – crossdressing actor Divine eating a freshly squeezed dog turd. Plenty of other outrageous films and scenes followed, with writer William Burroughs proclaiming Waters the ‘Pope of trash’, but none have outdone that early Divine moment. Most recently Waters had produced the less controversial but still highly amusing Hairspray, Cry-Baby and Serial Mom, but bounced back nearing 60 with last year’s ‘A Dirty Shame’. Featuring Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair, David Hasselhoff and Chris Isaak amongst others, the film peels back the suburban facade to find all the kinky fetishes that lay behind. And it’s near encyclopaedic in it’s cataloguing of deviant desires (see also, where you fit on this outrageous map).
Amongst the sexual persuasions, kinks, fetishes & esoteric practices lampooned includes of course the ‘bears’ which according to wikipedia, refers to gay males “who possess physical attributes much like a bear, such as a heavy build, abundant body hair, and commonly facial hair.” Nice to see Wikipedia includes gay bears, as well as the Grizzlies, Sloth Bears and Spectacle Bears. And via the wikipedia gay bear entry, there is also ( of course ) bearornot.com, which follows in the footsteps of hotornot.com, gothornot.com, ratemymullet.com, ratemedownunder.com, amiaminger.co.uk and afrohotornot.com in rating user contributed photos. Off you go.
tags: john waters, dirty shame, deviant+desires, kinky, gay bear