This week Team Experience pays tribute to John Waters for his 75th birthday.

by Nathaniel R

Unlike eggs and fresh meat, both of which are memorable supporting characters in John Waters Pink Flamingos (1972), movies don't come with expiration date. Nor should they. The expiration dates for movies are theoretical, figurative, and cultural, and are thus almost never agreed upon. Some movies magically live forever losing little of their original flavor. Some become even more flavorful and would be better suited to a wine analogy than this ill-advised animal byproducts one we're pursuing. We call these expiration-date busting films, classics. Whether they make you sick, these "old" movies, is entirely up to you. Can you remove yourself from the now while watching them or do you expect all movies to cater to the accepted opinions, values, and mores of the right now (which will have its own expiration date)? These are questions we might ask about any classic especially in our current very volatile and angry social climate, where everything is being reevaluted (which is a good thing) and mostly branded unacceptable (an unfortunately reductive thing, especially when it comes to art from previous eras).

But since our subject tonight is Pink Flamingos (1972) which wants to make you sick, it's the wrong question altogether. Maybe we don't have a question at all. Our eyes are still wide, heads still spinning, and feeling slightly nauseous...