Divine Intervention

I’m not sure how, but I came across this picture of the super fab Divine today...and boy, did it take me back! Like most upper-middle class suburban kids my first introduction to Divine was in the film Hairspray, a staple childhood favorite. Here was this fat, over-the-top super fabulous drag queen up on the big screen at my local, cookie-cutter Cineplex. She might have even been the first drag queen I had ever seen; big, brash and hilariously funny, I was mesmerized! I immediately started researching her…and low and behold, what did I find…Female Trouble, the cinematic masterpiece where her (and John Waters’) true, distorted genius was revealed to me. Female Trouble was like nothing I had ever seen, tasteless, trashy, perverse and disgusting…and I was instantly in on the joke. It was the funniest, most disturbing thing I had ever seen, queer and uncomfortable, yet campy and incredibly dark. I didn’t know what to make of it, it was the best/worst movie I had ever seen; the one liners, the bad acting, and the amazing, tick-tacky costumes…simply Divine! Watching Divine as Dawn Davenport develop from her high school delinquency into a super star (in her own mind of course) all ending with her brutal execution (not to mention a giant trampoline performance thrown in for bad measure) was an experience that scarred me for life. Divine was one fearless, sick motherfucker and together with John Waters she created some of the trashiest cinema magic to ever grace (for lack of a worst word) the silver screen! God bless you, Divine, you and your cha-cha heels!

“I’m so fucking beautiful I can’t stand myself!!!”