FEMALE TROUBLE
1974. 89 min. Directed by John Waters
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In John Waters’ queer comedic masterpiece FEMALE TROUBLE, deranged teen Dawn Davenport (played by the legendary Divine) beats up her parents and runs away from home after she doesn’t get the cha-cha heels she wanted for Christmas. Pretty soon she’s knocked up, down and out, and desperate for superstardom –– which she finds when she befriends a fascistic couple who help turn her into a psychotic performance artist!
For the first month of the summer season of the (still virtual) Queer|Art|Film Club, join us for a fun and frothy discussion about Waters’ still-brilliant cult classic with Brown, queer underground, punk ‘n’ glam rock guitar legend Kid Congo Powers, who first saw the film as a teen in the 1970s at the dawn of the punk rock explosion. Like all misfit queers who encounter Waters’ work, Powers found the film “bratty, hilarious, outrageous, and queer to the bone” and repeated the dialogue constantly with his friends. “We never felt more alive,” he recalls. Powers would soon inspire his own underground queer fan club as an important member of iconic bands like The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and as frontman for his own Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. The group’s latest EP, “Swing From the Sean DeLear,” is a tribute to another great queer punk and nightlife icon in the Waters-mold. After all, as Aunt Ida says in FEMALE TROUBLE, queers are just better!
Kid Congo Powers on FEMALE TROUBLE:
“My reason for picking John Waters’ FEMALE TROUBLE is that I first saw it as a teenager in the late 1970’s, at the dawn (Davenport) of the punk rock explosion, it was a film which gave me every reason to become counter “counter culture”. This movie knew what was on my mind. Bratty, Hilarious, outrageous and queer to the bone. Me and my friends remembered every bit of the dialogue and repeated it verbatim, very often! We never felt more alive. Divine, Edith Massey, Mink Stole, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pierce, and Cookie Muller all give Douglas Sirk gone mad performances , and let’s not forget the costumes , makeup and the music. “Female Trouble” will always be an all time favorite of mine.”
Kid Congo Powers is a Brown, queer, underground punk glam rock guitar legend who grew up in the East L.A. suburb of La Puente, California. His work over decades with worldwide bands like The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and now his own Pink Monkey Birds places Kid Congo Powers firmly in the international punk music scene. Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds’ latest release is the 4-song EP “Swing From the Sean DeLear”, which features a musical tribute to the “late, magical and ubiquitous” Sean DeLear, a nonbinary Black LA nightlife legend, artist, punk singer and icon who passed away in 2017.
Queer|Art|Film is supported by HBO and presented in partnership with IFC.