John Waters Is Ready to Defend the Worst People in the World

“If you pick up the book, you pretty much know what you’re going to get,” says John Waters about his debut novel, “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance,” a gleefully filthy caper due out on May 3. For longtime fans of the legendarily iconoclastic director of “Pink Flamingos” (1972) and “Hairspray” (1988), who is also a best-selling writer of nonfiction (“Role Models”; “Mr. Know-It-All”), knowing what you’re going to get means expecting a rainbow of outré sexual and criminal high jinks. If you’re less familiar with the Waters corpus, know that the book’s specifics include talking genitalia, tickle fetishism, bloody violence and plenty of satire about the shibboleths of both the left and the right. That’s what you’re getting, and that’s what Waters, 75, has been joyfully peddling in various forms for nearly 60 years — to increasingly welcoming audiences and his own continued astonishment. “The mainstream has in the last 10 years begun to accept me,” Waters says. “For reasons I’m not sure I understand. Maybe because they can’t get rid of me.”

You used to get in trouble for what your movies showed, like lobster rape or eating poop, and not so much for their ideas. Now it seems as if a filmmaker is more likely to make people upset by expressing objectionable ideas rather than anything they might depict. What do you make of that shift? Do you think that shift — Did you say “that shift” or “that [expletive]”?

You decide. Shift, with an “f.” I’m happy at the social change, the craziness of it. The main difference, though, is when I was young — and I hate people that say that; it means you’re old — we used political incorrectness as a weapon against our enemies, but we made fun of ourselves first. The trigger-warning crowd does not make fun. I’m actually for going further: We should have fecal mobs go out and perform turd terrorism to prove that we’re serious about policing pronouns. The Jan. 6 people, they [expletive] in Nancy Pelosi’s office. So maybe we should go even crazier politically correct the other way and have fecal flash mobs going out there.

What do you mean? Malls that didn’t have nonbinary reindeer for Christmas: You leave an upper decker. That’s when you —

I know what an upper decker is. Or a payday. That’s when you don’t flush the turd. I’m just saying humor is how you fight. It’s how you make people change their mind. Everything I’ve ever done is about using humor as a weapon. I don’t think I’m mean, but everything’s touchy now. When things are touchy, isn’t that when comedy gets more exciting? Always, I was trying to satirize the rules of the world I lived in. At the same time I was trying to make you laugh and to see, What are the limits?

What about when people become pariahs for things that are outside the work? Which has happened to folks you’ve worked with — Johnny Depp, for example. What’s your view of that? It’s a good thing we are not going retroactive here because practically every artist would be canceled. I have a thing about who I would cancel: J.K. Rowling. Give her some Preparation H for that transphobia. What’s the matter with her? There are people I would like to cancel, but at the same time I’m saying it humorously. I’m not going to go through each person who’s been canceled and say what I think, but I never saw Johnny Depp act negatively to a woman in my entire life — and I did drugs and got drunk with him.

When was the last time you did drugs? When I took LSD when I was 70 with Mink Stole. I used to love drugs. I did every drug there was, too. Even heroin. But I’m not a jazz musician: They have to take heroin — it’s not bad for everybody. Poppers: Before acid that’s the last one I did.

I’ve never done poppers. Should I? Oh, you should. Well, see if you like them. They give you nasty little burns on your nose, and they smell like dirty feet, but sexually they do work. The head of the popper company sent me a supply, and I’m out because I gave them away for presents to everybody, but he killed himself. Can you OD on poppers? I hope not. I would try it if I were you.

Do you see differences in the way those on the left and on the right try to provoke each other? The right used to be my censors. They aren’t anymore. I don’t have any. If I did, it would be young woke liberals. But I always try to use humor to put everything in perspective because I question my own values. Why is this OK and that isn’t? The only way you can do that is with humor.

What’s a value of yours that you’ve questioned recently? Well, growing up, gay, trans, lesbian, we were all on the same team. It was one big happy world. Fighting with one another is weakening our pervert brand. I feel sorry for some of the old-school lesbians I know. They don’t want a beard, but they’re made to feel square if they don’t have one. That kind of debate — that’s why I loved Andrea Dworkin. I didn’t agree with her a lot, but I remember when she said — people deny she said it, but she kind of did — that all heterosexual sex is rape. I had to laugh because I knew how that was going to make people crazy. I like crackpots. I don’t have to agree with them. Eldridge Cleaver bragged about raping people and was a left-wing hero! I’m not saying I’m for any of that, but I’m amazed at people’s seriousness now. There’s so much fighting with one another. I’m against that. I never was a separatist.

Certainly with film or television or books it does seem that more and more people are looking for reaffirmation of what they already think and feel rather than showing much appetite for being challenged. I want the book to be hard. I want movies to disturb me. But that’s mainstream taste basically: People don’t want to be disturbed. I don’t think that’s anything new.

What makes you personally uncomfortable? Nothing makes me totally uncomfortable.

Any obsessions or fetishes that you feel guilty about? You think I would tell you?

Do you repress anything? That’s a good one: repress. Things sound good — until you do them.

Like what? Ah, no.

You’re blushing. We’ll save it for my next book.

Do you think young filmmakers are still interested in making feature-length films that shock? What is shocking to me is that they’re not interested in art movies. They want to go to a mall. They want to sit in stadium seating. They want special effects. To me, cheesy special effects are much more fun than these new ones. I’m in the minority here obviously. That’s why I write books. But Criterion keeps putting my stuff out. It’s easier to see my work than ever. “Pink Flamingos” probably violates more values now than it did then.

The [expletive]-eating scene in that movie is still infamous 50 years later. But if I wanted to, within 15 seconds I could be watching footage of somebody eating [expletive]. Has the fact that we can see taboo behaviors so easily changed the meaning of your early movies? It’s different when you look for someone eating [expletive]. In “Pink Flamingos” people didn’t know that was coming. That’s one thing. Another is, the audiences were all together, high, at midnight in cult-movie theaters. That is why it’s so different: that group experience of discovering something at the same time. There was no video; there were no computers. I don’t get free porn. You have to pay for porn for it to work! You have to have some guilt. Porn where you can just type in the most hideous sex act you could think of and in one second it comes up for free? What’s the fun of that? I used to steal it when I was really young because I was too embarrassed to buy it. Now you click a button and it comes right up. It takes the fun out of it.

Where do you look for trouble now? I look for artistic trouble. I still visit prisons. Amy Locane, who was the star of “Cry-Baby,” is in prison for a terrible drunk-driving accident she had. She served, got out, then they said it wasn’t enough and gave her more years. I don’t know how that’s legally possible. I communicate with her. But that’s not danger. That’s just part of the work. Because I’m not a defense lawyer it’s as close as I can get. Leslie Van Houten, I was going to visit the last time I was in L.A., and they canceled because they had an outbreak. Visiting jails, it’s harder these days. I don’t like doing it on Zoom.

I know that being a defense lawyer is your fantasy alternative career. Why that job? Because somebody has to stick up for the worst people in the world. They weren’t born bad. I don’t believe anyone was born bad. The mystery is people’s behavior. I’m fascinated by people’s behavior, especially people I can’t understand. Being a lawyer would be a way to be obsessive about it: It’s your job. Otherwise you’re just a crime groupie hanging around courthouses.

You’ve been interested in true crime going back at least to the Manson-family murders. I’m fascinated by the Manson family too, but my fascination also makes me feel gross — it’s a ghoulish interest. But what do you see in true crime? I have changed. The Manson case: I went to the trial every day. It completely influenced me. But later I did apologize for the smartass stuff I wrote in “Shock Value.” Because, later, I taught in prison. I got to understand victims’ rights. I got to see the families of people who were in prison. So I stopped making light. In “Role Models,” I wrote a serious chapter about Leslie Van Houten, who has become my friend — who has been given parole and the governor turns it down, which I believe is unfair. She has been a model citizen for 50 years. The California prison system should be so proud of her. Nobody wants to be the one that lets her out. They turn her down every time. Maybe letting her out would not be a popular decision, but does anyone actually believe that she would do anything again? She looks back on it with horror. So, to answer your question, I’ve gotten a little more serious. In the beginning, it was the notoriety: The Manson family scared the world, and that was something that we were trying to do with our movies. I was rewarded for it because I did it in fiction. They did it for real.

In the past you’ve made a distinction between good bad taste, which you have, and bad bad taste. But you’ve also written that the Beatles ruined rock ’n’ roll and Prince was a pretentious midget. So explain to me about your taste. I maybe regret that. I’m not a fan of either still. The Beatles were too cheery, and Prince seemed pretentious. Yes, I know that is sacrilege to say. Although the book is called “Crackpot,” so it was supposed to be a crazy person ranting. With the Beatles, who cares that I don’t like them? I never say bad things about people — except the Beatles or Prince. Like they could care. I’m not going to hurt their reputation. The few times I’ve ever said anything negative it was about something that everyone else loved. Here’s what I hate: a movie where the audience goes awww. If anybody goes awww, I run. I want to be disturbed. I want to be shaken. I don’t want to be patted on the back.

What in the culture today gives you pause in the way that your work might give other people pause? The new censorship. I think I should be allowed to yell “fire” in a crowded theater. I believe in the extremes of free speech. There is horrible pornography; we have to put up with it. The most right-wing — I don’t get why they aren’t allowed to come to colleges. Where does it stop? People don’t like what I say? So what. I’m allowed to say it and I live in the greatest country. I’m a down-low patriotic person. In my old spoken-word show I did an entire thing of what it would be like to have sex with Trump that was rude and graphic, and I didn’t get the firing squad. In some countries I would have.

You know what gave me pause? I was looking through your “Art — A Sex Book” and there’s a photo in there of a man using his foreskin to cover the tip of another man’s — Yeah, it’s called docking.

Docking, that’s it. An image like that, or the one in the book of the guy spread-eagled with “Molly Ringwald” written across — His ass.

Right. Those images give me a feeling that isn’t arousal and also isn’t distaste. I’m not sure what that feeling is, but I get it from a lot of your work. What do you think it is? That, to me, is art. You look at it and it stops you in your tracks. That’s what Andy Warhol’s soup can did. That’s what Jackson Pollock’s paintings and Cy Twombly’s scribbling did. That’s the kind of art I like: the oh, my God.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the columnist for Talk. Recently he interviewed Neal Stephenson about portraying a utopian future, Laurie Santos about happiness and Christopher Walken about acting.