Caleb Gordon is a Wellington Film Society member and an aficionado of ‘trash cinema’. Here, he briefly explores how John Waters brought classic Hollywood and campy gimmicks together to make Polyester a reality.
Prince of Puke, Duke of Dirt, Pope of Trash, Filth Elder: John Waters has collected more filthy titles than most filmmakers have accolades. As far as cinematic reputations go, being an arbiter of bad taste is one Waters has mined with gleeful dedication. Polyester (1981) might just be his most polished and perverse ode to the craft.
Though often dubbed a cult director of underground midnight movies, Waters was never shy about his ambition to break into the mainstream. He wanted to provoke, yes; but he also wanted to sell tickets. His business plan? Be gross and still gross at the box office.
Following the commercial disappointment of Desperate Living (1977), Waters realised he needed a new approach. The late-night audiences that once fuelled his infamy were trading grindhouse cinemas for the couch-bound convenience of home video. To survive, he’d need a film that could reach beyond his loyal freak contingent and draw (slightly more) regular patrons to the theatres. Something broader. Something bolder. Something… stinkier.
Enter Polyester: a cracked parody of Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor melodramas and the domestic gloss of Father Knows Best, the film follows a long-suffering housewife tormented not just by suburban dysfunction, but by odours. The result is a warped soap opera that manages to be both grotesque and oddly heartfelt.
Waters’ first big gimmick? Casting 1950s heartthrob Tab Hunter as the male lead, Todd Tomorrow, a Trojan horse of respectability. Hunter was handsome, capable, and most importantly, agent-free. No one would expect the star of Damn Yankees to take a role in a John Waters movie, let alone play it so straight. Divine also returns – she had been notably absent from Desperate Living due to a scheduling conflict – but not as the feral force of chaos seen in Pink Flamingos. Here, she plays Francine Fishpaw, a well-meaning, tragic figure undone by her family and society. For some fans, it was a controversial pivot: less monster, more martyr. But Waters was always evolving, smuggling subversion into increasingly “respectable” forms.
“If you ever see Waters’ name on the marquee, walk on the other side of the street and hold your nose,” warned New York Post critic Archer Winsten. Waters took it as a challenge.
His response? Odorama. Reviving the failed smell-cinema experiments of Behind the Great Wall (1958) in AromaRama and Scent of Mystery (1960) in Smell-O-Vision, Waters believed their fatal flaw wasn’t the gimmick, it was that the smells were pleasant. He went in the opposite direction. If audiences wouldn’t scratch-and-sniff for roses, maybe they would for farts.
Armed with scent cards and a scratch-and-sniff guide timed to the film, audiences could experience wafts of flatulence, dirty shoes, and natural gas, courtesy of the 3M smell library. Waters argued the universal compulsion to sniff something bad is what would finally make a smell-cinema work. While the gimmick didn’t catch on for other films, it did become an integral part of the Polyester experience.
Polyester became Waters’ first crossover hit, screened in daytime matinees, shown in aboveground theatres, and distributed internationally. It didn’t make him stinking rich, but it did get him a seat closer to the mainstream. And for a man raised on exploitation, irony, and Catholic guilt, that was an achievement worth sniffing at.