John Waters: This Filthy Mainstream

“I think when people come to see my movies or read my books or come to my Christmas show, they want me to take them somewhere they wouldn’t go. And with me as their guide, they never get mad, because I’m not saying you should do this. I’m saying, isn’t it amazing, human behaviour?”

With his books never out of print, his films on Netflix, children going to the Broadway versions and Waters narrating the part of Jessica the Hippo for Animal Planet, I ask how he likes life in the mainstream. “It’s great. It’s the final irony in my life,” he answers. “I think we need a new vocabulary, because [now] everybody wants to be an outsider. When I was one, no one wanted to be one.”

He has mixed feelings about gay culture becoming mainstream: “I miss it … I’m for gay marriage. I don’t want to do it, but I certainly think people should be allowed to, and I wouldn’t vote for anybody that would be against it. But at the same time, why do we have to be good now? Why can’t we be villains in movies?” He says it’s good that more people are able to come out of the closet, but adds: “I wish some gay people would go back in. We have enough...”

Britain's weekend broadsheets continue their obsession with John Waters - as FT Weekend lets him complete the set this year.
I like the FT billing it as "a rare at-home interview" - he's famous for inviting journalists to interview him at home (or one of his homes).
Mr Waters is doing a Christmas thing at the Royal Festival Hall I understand;
“I’m trying to open up new questions such as, is Santa erotic?”