John Waters Film Director A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow Season premieres of "Friends," "Frasier," "ER" and Christina Applegate's new "Jesse" Y E S T E R D A Y The Shadow sheds light By Adam Heimlich Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, goes on the record about the evolution of hip-hop and his latest project, "Psyence Fiction," the debut album from UNKLE (09/23/98) Sharps & Flats Reviews of the latest releases from Hootie and the Blowfish, Cat Power, Amy Rigby and Marilyn Manson (09/23/98) R E C E N T_. M O V I E S Home Movies By Charles Taylor Paul Schrader's "Patty Hearst" tells the story Americans didn't want to hear (09/22/98) One True Thing Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir Renée Zellweger buckles under the emotional weight of a six-hankie weeper (09/18/98) A Merry War Reviewed by Charles Taylor Richard E. Grant and Helena Bonham Carter shun middle-class mediocrity in the film adaptation of George Orwell's "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" (09/18/98) Rush Hour Reviewed by Charles Taylor A pale imitation of Jackie Chan's Hong Kong hits (09/18/98) The Young Girls of Rochefort Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek Romantic fantasies are indulged in Jacques Demy's touchingly outmoded musical love letter (09/18/98) BROWSE THE MOVIE ARCHIVES COLUMNS FEATURES REVIEWS INTERVIEWS

PECKERHEAD | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - There weren't many gay yippies? The gay movement was pretty square in the '60s, until drugs. Drugs made gay men much hipper. I used to go to the riots because all the boys with the bombs were so cute. I was against the war in Vietnam, but I was more interested in the parties. I remember the first gay liberation speech I ever heard. It was at Yale. We'd crossed state lines, to riot basically. None of us had jobs, the whole thing. It was to free Huey Newton. There were big riots, fires, tear gas -- a wonderful weekend. This guy got up and gave a gay liberation speech and everyone, Abbie Hoffman, was horrified. They weren't against it, but the Black Panthers were taken by surprise. It was a new thing, off the coattails of women's liberation, which was also a new thing to them. These women were getting sick of cooking for all those radicals while they were out throwing bombs. All that lentil soup. Exactly. All that macramé -- they were getting ready to strangle them with it! So it was very rare for someone to be openly gay in the context of Vietnam, Black Panthers and Rap magazine. That sort of stuff was really about the fun of being a brat. It wasn't completely out of the goodness of my political soul that I did it. It was fun. That's a valid combination. Fascinating as this is though, we should get back to the movie. It's about an encounter between New York and Baltimore. "Pecker" reflects two sides of my life that I'm very fond of: blue collar Baltimore and the New York art world. Every weekend I decide if I want to go to a biker luau or a dinner after an opening at the Museum of Modern Art. All of my movies gently make fun of the things I love, which is why all of my films, even the most radical ones, were never mean-spirited. I looked up to what I made fun of. I never put it down for real, except for people who judge other people -- they always wind up murdered in my films. No one's murdered in this movie. There's not one violent act. Baltimore does come out on top, though. Well, the New Yorkers do adapt and come back changed. They all got laid. That's one thing that never happens at a New York art party. The dilemma of Lili Taylor's character [a lonely gallery owner] is basically true. Everyone is so cool in the art world. It's so much about positioning and intelligence that I think not a lot of people get laid after art parties, no. I've never heard of it. Everyone's too cool, and sex, in a way, is admitting you need something. And there are a lot of cute straight guys in that bar in Baltimore. Not all of them are straight guys. They're all straight guys! Some are women in drag! Well, yes, some of them are drag kings, and pretending to be a straight guy is how one gets a woman to dance with her. I love sexual terrorism. Confusion with sexual identity in bars is the most fun. Otherwise it's so boring. In "Pecker," Martha Plimpton plays a woman who works in a gay bar and is turned on by the strippers who appeal to gay men -- strippers who all identify as straight, by the way. The bar is real, isn't it? It is, but I made it better. Let me guess: You made the guys cuter? Yes. But it used to be even better than it is in my movie because it's right next to the prison and the guys would get a job there when they got out of jail. So it was nude prisoners -- there's nothing better! It's all based on reality, even though it's not like that anymore. It's still next to the prison. The prisoners would yell when the bus with the actors pulled up: "Action, get off the bus, go in the fag bar, cut!" The Pelt Room, I'm told, harks back to troubles you've had with the authorities about showing pubic hair in your films. Pubic hair has always been an issue. In nudist films, back in the beginning, you could show everything but that: tits and ass, but no pubic hair. Pubic hair used to give you an X and later an R rating, and in Japan you still can't show it. In bars you could always strip so far, but you cannot have pubic hair and liquor. Each state has its pubic hair rules. It's a complicated pubic issue. I used to fight with the censor board all the time, even when it got beyond pubic hair. She'd say: "You have to cut that vagina," and I'd say, "That's a man. It's not a vagina, it's a cheater." I'd have to explain that a cheater was a fake pubic thing that goes over a penis with a merkin on top, which was a pubic hair wig, which I'd try to explain to her just to horrify her. She'd scream, "Don't tell me about sex -- I was married to an Italian!" I'd spend every penny I had on a movie and she'd hand me a pair of scissors to ruin a brand new print to cut two frames of what she said was "Rear entry!" which I loved, she'd scream that out -- "Rear entry!" I never heard anybody say that in my life. Now I'm proud to say that we have a full-screen shot of pubic hair in an R-rated movie. I think they were very fair about that, the MPAA. They always claim it's about "overall tone." The overall tone of this movie isn't offensive. It could easily be offensive to show a man staring at a close-up of undulating pubic hair, but in a place called the Pelt Room it becomes a joke. This movie, like a lot of your more recent movies, has a very sweet spirit. I think it does. I'm happier in my life at 52 years old. At 25, when I made "Pink Flamingos," I was more insane, angrier maybe, but still happy. It's 1990 now, not the '60s, when there was a cultural war going on. Now I'm rooting for the president to get blow jobs! It's very different. "Pecker" has some of the edge of my earlier movies but a sweeter spirit. The sense of humor is the same. "Pecker" is a feel-good movie for lunatics. Your sensibility has gotten a little bit sweeter, and at the same time your brand of humor is a lot more common out there in mainstream culture. My humor and American humor generally have come towards each other, amazingly so. Who knows, "Pink Flamingos" may someday play on television. Anything can happen. Now "There's Something About Mary" has close-ups of cum and balls caught in zippers. I think that's great. It makes my life easier that it's out there and has made money and was a hit. That would have been unheard-of in a movie 10 years ago, and I like to think I've had a little bit of influence in making that possible. I'm proud of that. SALON | Sept. 24, 1998