A trailer outside Baltimore housed a 300-pound drag queen who ate dog feces on camera, in a single take, and was crowned by a tabloid as the filthiest person alive.

PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) stars Divine as Babs Johnson, a criminal hiding under a false name, content with her crown and her small kingdom of trash and depravity. Then Connie and Raymond Marble, a married couple who run a baby-selling ring out of their home, decide they deserve her "filthiest person" crown instead. War breaks out between the two households, each side trying to out-disgust the other.

John Waters wrote, directed, and shot the film himself for $12,000 in Baltimore, filming only on weekends with the same troupe of friends and misfits he called his Dreamland company. His own parents financed it and never watched it. Mink Stole, David Lochary, Danny Mills, Edith Massey, Cookie Mueller, and Mary Vivian Pearce all play roles that blur the line between performance and provocation. Waters was 25.