I was really shocked that Krista hadn’t seen Pecker, since she is a John Waters fan. Watching it toward the end of last week, I was reminded of just how much I love that movie. Few movies have really captured the joy of taking pictures quite so well. Though it’s been roundly panned by many people as Waters’ “sell-out” movie, I think they just don’t get the joke. Art is about doing what you like; doing what you like has consequences.
Looking around a bit, I found an old interview with Waters by Gerald Peary that demonstrates the durability and continuing relevance of one of Waters’ choicer bits of “symbolic action”:
Q-In Pecker, people from New York come to Baltimore and get “teabagged.” Is that a real thing?
It’s a “term.” I saw it once in that bar, when someone hits you on your forehead with their balls! All heterosexual women have been “teabagged,” if they had oral sex, or, accidentally, if a guy getting out of bed in the morning has to crawl to the other side! But I exaggerate: people don’t go to that bar to get “teabagged” or anything. Even gay people don’t know the term. It’s obscure, but I hope my movie will make “teabagging” a pastime. (Laughs) It’s safe!
