University of Sussex
Browse
Padilla Díaz, Elisa.pdf (1.74 MB)

Bodies, taste and pleasures: the cinema of John Waters

Download (1.74 MB)
thesis
posted on 2023-06-09, 23:45 authored by Elisa María Padilla-Diaz

This thesis focuses on bodies, taste and pleasures in the films of John Waters. Through a textual analysis of the film texts, this thesis studies the bodies on screen, the cultural ramifications of their taste, and the place they occupy in the social world. I argue that Waters’ aesthetics of bad taste contain a joyous world of visual excess that upends hierarchies of distinction, parodying the categories of gender, race and class, and celebrating the dethroning of seriousness (Sontag 2018). Building on the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu, I read the body as a site imprinted by power and knowledge, regulated by gender and taste. By placing the body at the centre, I aim to re-evaluate the critical consensus around Waters’ cinema. 

‘Pope of Trash’, ‘Prince of Puke’, and ‘People’s Pervert’ are some of the titles awarded to filmmaker John Waters, whose career has been studied as the paradigm of the cult auteur. This thesis aims to further the discussion of Waters’ cinema beyond the impasse of transgression. By granting similar importance to Waters’ underground, independent and Hollywood years, I expose the limits of the domestication discourse, which suggests that his late-career lost edge and got assimilated by the system (Levy 2015, Moon and Sedgwick 1994). Scrutinizing the critical points of proximity and distance between the earlier and later works, the thesis addresses the importance of laughter in Waters’ cinema and argues for the film’s running representation of queer utopia. 

This thesis is organised thematically, albeit those themes order the films in almost chronological order. It examines the underground years1 and its grotesque world of cheap thrills; beauty, ugliness and the revolting woman; the strategy of queering suburbia; nostalgia and musical utopias; cult authorship and operations of taste. It concludes pondering Waters’ status in today’s American popular culture. 

History

File Version

  • Published version

Pages

293.0

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Theses

Qualification level

  • doctoral

Qualification name

  • phd

Language

  • eng

Institution

University of Sussex

Full text available

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2021-05-25

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Theses)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC