If annoying is an art, Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers is a masterpiece. It's full of high-pitched cackles, nonsense songs ("A doodle all day," goes a line in the most often repeated one, "Three Little Devils") and a group of people intent on devising new ways to be as simultaneously stupid, disgusting and solitary as possible. The things that they come up with are amazing as innovations in inanity.
Korine creates what really feels like its own world, slowly revealing its malevolence. It's all fun and trash-humping until we see a dead body lying in a field...and then catch evidence of another murder performed by this group of people who are maybe in masks or maybe just melted (the murder reveal is preceded by some banter about a pet dog, folding an act of atrociousness into banal domesticity as a matter of course). And that's not all, as far as crimes go. So many questions arise, if the movie holds your attention and its seemingly plotless and free-form structure doesn't turn you off. Why's that toilet in a field? What's in the bags? Where do these people live? Why are others hanging out with them? What's the point? Are they really as free as they think they are?
It may feel like a frustrating cocktail of idiotic and lofty (as a great fan of absurdity, I really enjoy the movie, but by the end of both of my viewings, I was ready for it to be over -- and its running time is less than 80 minutes). But that cocktail can also be hysterical. This movie is as trashy as that which is humped, and its old-VHS aesthetic only helps reinforce the seediness (I don't understand, though, why, if it's supposed to be edited from tape, its aspect ratio is 16x9 instead of 4x3). Some select, NSFW-ish absurdity is included in the gif wall below. It is mostly inspired by the humpers' advice: make it, don't fake it!
I'm in Miami for work and not only is it a lot of work it's also...Miami. There comes a time when you have to choose between having a blog and having a life. I often choose the former; since I'm in Miami (I will not say "bitch!") and haven't ever been before, I'm choosing the latter. I'll have a recap up, but probably not till it's late enough to be irrelevant. Whatever! It's coming. In the meantime, enjoy watching Tyra going ba-ta-ta-tuh-ta with these nice ta-tas. What size are they again?
Aretha Franklin and her muumuu recently took to PBS to fund-raise apparently out of an extremely deep-seated love for the network. Guys, she really, really loves it. Her love of PBS programming is not to be believed -- believe me and I'm serious. I clipped and cut up the weirder points of her shilling, including her open scratching and possible crotch-grabbing, her tributes to cheese steaks and roller-skating and her unexpected modesty when confronted with a compliment.
The clip above is a bit of so-bad-it's-fantastic transcendence from a Christian propaganda VHS called Demons: True Life Evil Forces. In it, a woman who apparently is disgusted by Buddhism recounts a story she once heard about a "demon" in the apartment that she manages. Reenactments of hearsay are obviously the best reenactments of them all. Anyway, I hate to spoil it for you (no I don't), but it turns out that all it takes to rid the apartment of the demon is telling it, "Jesus...In the name of Jesus, leave!" and then drawing a cross in crayon on a piece of paper and taping it face down on the portal the demon came out of. Yes, it's true: ridding your home of demons is easier than ridding your home of vermin and relatives. It kind of makes me want to get a demon -- if they're that easy to get rid of, I might as well keep one around for a few hours just for the cultural experience. It would, at the very least, make a good blog post, you know?
It wasn't Annamaria's constant bragging or the camera's lingering on her supposedly unhealthy body that let me know she was going home. It was her attempt to defend herself from Tyra's criticism and the death blink that followed.
Below is a possible explanation (based on inisder knowledge!) for the air of bullshit that arrives with the new "documentary" Catfish. Also, I spoil the entire film. Ha.
Above is basically contraband footage from a live interview/signing John Waters did last Friday that was put on by the Word bookstore in Brooklyn (though it took place at an actual venue, Coco 66). We weren't supposed to take any pictures or video, but I couldn't resist having my boyfriend capture footage while I asked John about reality TV. His immediate response struck me as disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing because he's said plentydisparagingwords about reality TV (John Waters saying that something ruined bad taste is about as big as an insult can get). All night he was like that with the weirdly bashful L.A. Times reporter Carolyn Kellogg, who interviewed him, while regularly turning and covering her face when he said anything mildly racy. She called him kind to his subjects in his recent book Role Models and he was like, "OF COURSE, I'M NOT GOING TO INSULT THEM!!!" She said it was interesting that he didn't out Johnny Mathis in the chapter about him and John was all, "IT'S NOT LIKE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT JOURNALISTIC COUP OR ANYTHING!!!" I'm paraphrasing, but all mean to say is that he was oddly combative. I guess when you're John Waters and your ass is now raw from all the kissing it's experienced, you get to be abrupt and dismissive.
Anyway, I obviously do not see eye-to-eye with John or most of the audience, for that matter, if their very vocal agreement with his words on reality TV was an actual indication of their opinions. They were so vocal and antagonistic when I suggested that reality TV was pop culture's most reliable source of camp that I wondered, "Are we gonna fight?" I was conflicted about whether I should elaborate on my point, but ultimately decided not to be a mic hog (this was the audience Q&A portion that clearly was only to last for a brief period of time, and people had stuff to ask him about paving the way for Skinemax-type shit that they masturbated to in their youth and stuff...yeah, I didn't really get it either). But if I had gone on, I would have pointed out that I think that director/producer intent matters less in the appreciation of camp than the sensibility's grand unifying element: extreme human behavior. That element is celebrated in the films of Waters and reality TV alike. I'm pretty sure that John's queer sensibility allowed him to see hilarious, absurd things in Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! that Russ Meyer never intended. On the same token, I can't imagine that everyone who watched Pink Flamingos stood in appreciative awe of Edith Massey -- surely there must have been some spiteful laughter about her acting...technique or teeth gap or clear insanity. Also worth considering is that not all exploitation is without humanity (and, on top of that, what in contemporary pop culture isn't somehow exploitation, anyway?). Maybe the big corporate machines that drive these reality stars to public infamy do not actually care about them, but with my own eyes I've seen the bonds that form between subjects and story producers. Not everyone involved is out to subjugate.
My great respect for him, his work and his massaging his fist full of trash into the body cavity of pop culture notwithstanding, I can't help but wonder if John's a little butt hurt. After all, his brand of trash is not the most relevant to contemporary pop culture, and that could be threatening. It seems like he's constructing a hierarchy here (one not unlike that of porn girls who'll fuck however, but don't do anal...like those other girls). His argument is a rationalization: "Well, my trash is better than that other trash, for you see..." Is this just a matter of making mountains out of trash heaps?
From the viewer's perspective, I promise everyone that it is quite possible to watch reality TV and laugh in amazement at the people on screen. As response to reality television becomes more sophisticated (Richard Lawson, case in point) and voluminous, it's very strange that the assumption remains that all interpretation of it must be the same and all of it must include schadenfreude. That seems to be what John is supposing, and it's furthermore evident in, to name a recent example, Katie Roiphe's New York Times Sunday Book Review piece on Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay. She writes, "Watching young people kill each [on reality TV] other might seem a little sick or unhinged, and this is not an author to delicately avert her gaze. Our voyeurism is fully engaged in these books, but so intelligently, adeptly engaged that it does not feel trashy or gratuitous." This assumes that it is not possible to be fully, intelligently and adeptly engaged in trash or gratuitousness (in order to get out of bed in the morning, I must believe this is wrong), and it at least implies that reality TV does not yield such a sophisticated reward anyway. To answer this, I'll call on a quote from Petronella Danforth in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: it depends on how you use it.
