John Waters embraces being an ‘old-school gay’: ‘Never was a Muscle Mary’
John Waters (Robin Marchant/Getty)
Legendary filmmaker John Waters says he’s proud to be an “old-school gay” and has never felt obligated to fit the image ideals often celebrated within gay culture.
Speaking in Thursday’s (23 July) episode of Finding Fire Island, the Pink Flamingos and Hairspray director reflected on turning 80 in April, his place within the LGBTQ+ community, and the queer history that younger generations may never fully experience.
“The younger people understand me and my films,” Waters said, as per HuffPost, “because they know my films and everything, it’s a very different world for me in the gay community.”
Waters also joked that, even in his younger years, he never fit the mould of the stereotypical hyper-muscular gay man.
“Even at the height of when I looked the best, I never was a ‘Muscle Mary,'” he said. “It’s a culture that I know about… but to me, the hippie gay thing, ‘The Cockettes’ and all that, was more radical and to my liking than, say, clones.”
The filmmaker then turned to a more sobering subject: the HIV/AIDS epidemic that devastated the LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s and 1990s. “That’s the main thing: If you’re older, you remember that, and you can never convey what that was like to young people,” Waters said.
Finding Fire Island host Jess Rothschild, a New York journalist, said she was especially drawn to Waters because of how he has always embraced being different, even within queer spaces. “John Waters represents the idea that what society calls ‘too much’ can become a source of creativity, humour and power,” she said.
“I love how he speaks to being an outsider even within the gay community and relishing it,” she continued. “The traits that make you feel out of place can become the foundation of your identity, your art and your community rather than something to hide.”
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