The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

282 John Waters
countries—maybe this could happen; you could be home one day and be
really just transported to another world, learn everything, and come back.
To me, it is American because of the values with friends, and how people
save each other and expose fraud—the person behind the curtain is really
bullshit that has no power. All those are very American subject matter, but I
don’t know why they aren’t European really, either.
To me, it’s about one person, the whole movie: the Wicked Witch of the
West. She inspired me. When I first saw the Wicked Witch of the West, I was
completely obsessed by her. I didn’t know why Dorothy wanted to go back
to that smelly farm, with that badly dressed aunt and black and white, when
she could live with gay lions, basically, and magic shoes.
Tell me about a favorite scene.
Waters: When they throw the water on the witch, she says, “Who would
have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.”
That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to
sleep, like a prayer.
Her outfit, what a great outfit, it was a Commes des Garçons outfit years
ahead of its time. Her makeup, the music around her—that one little shot
where you see her in the tree before the Tin Man. It’s my favorite little hint
of her, because you’re missing her.
I can still, with my nieces and nephews, just say, [menacingly] “Who killed
my sister!” and they break into tears. They were young. It really scares most
kids. If it scared me, I loved it. And it made me appreciate villains in films.
I never met her, Margaret Hamilton. But she did, before she died, send
me an autographed picture. And my favorite thing that’s made me obsessed
to this day is she signed it, “Margaret Hamilton,” but then “WWW” for
Wicked Witch of the West. It was like her monogram. What a great, great
thing to have all through your house. Those three letters were so amazing
to me.
But she led to my whole belief, in all my movies that I made, that basically
my heroes and heroines are sometimes the villains in other people’s
movies. Everything was backwards: The fat girl gets the guy [Hairspray]; the
good killer is Serial Mom. It’s always the reverse character in other people’s
movies that are heroes. I realized that I was never going to be like the other