Pecker

From the man who brought you (brought me, anyway) the indelible image of a three-hundred-pound drag queen eating fecal matter off the ground comes "Pecker," a charming semi-autobiographical tale by auteur John Waters. The eponymous Pecker, by the way, has been named for the way he used to "peck" at his food when he was a boy, and every person in the film, with one exception, refrains from making the rude puns on the boy's name that I suspect would be a major feature of any conversation I had with or about him, if I was a character in the film. I will try to be strong.

Since "Pecker"'s preview was not, for some reason, shown at the local AMC City Place theatre along with those of "Soldier" and "Bride of Chucky," I will assume that a little plot summary of the kind I abhor is necessary. Pecker is a Baltimorean photographer. His mom runs a thrift shop that specializes in the twenty-five cent formal outfit. His dad runs a bar whose patronage is drifting to the lesbian stripper bar across the street. His sister is one of those small children who are totally obsessed with finding and consuming sugar (she orders a Jolt at Daddy's bar, to give you an idea). His big sister works at a gay bar. His grandmother sells pit beef sandwiches, but her first love is sticking her hand in the back of a statuette of the Virgin Mary, moving the statuette's mouth, and making the statue say things in a voice reminiscent of the old chicken Foghorn Leghorn was always courting in the Warner Bros. cartoons. And his girlfriend, Christina Ricci, runs a laundromat with an iron fist.

All of these lives are transformed when Pecker's photos are discovered by an art dealer from Sodom and Gomor—I mean, New York. He instantly (as so often happens in movies) is catapulted into the ranks of New York art world stardom with his take on people who are not dressed entirely in black and who are not sepulchrally thin or homosexual. This strikes the New York art world of this movie as a complete novelty. But Pecker's life, and the lives of those around him, are changed by his newfound celebrity. Will Pecker realize that he has to be a son of Baltimore for his art to work at all? Will his friends, newly bitter because of the various tragic consequences of Pecker's success, come back to Pecker's side in a thrilling finale? Will there be numerous jaw-droppingly hilarious, tasteless scenes along the way presented in a glib, matter-of-fact style? Is "Waters" spelled with one "r"?

OK, so this is not exactly the most excruciatingly imaginative plot in the world. The movie world, and especially the comedy world, likes but does not demand such things. What surprised me, upon watching this film, is how much it is like "There's Something About Mary" in a lot of ways, i.e., everyone in the film is dysfunctional in some important way except Chick A (Christina Ricci, who is just hilarious all the way through, and whose character would probably be dysfunctional in a normal context but it doesn't show here) and there are a whole lot of gags that rely not on sparkling mind games, but on appeal to various other parts of the body which we all know are also engaged in watching movies. (I must confess that I, unlike the rest of the audience at Cineplex Odious [sic] Dupont Circle, do not see the obvious belly laughs inherent in a shot of copulating rats. Maybe there's some social context I'm missing, but that normally means to me you need to improve your food sanitation habits.)

The difference here is the tone. Waters really likes all these people, even the fake New York people (as we find out in the finale, even if the lesson-learning is mainly done by them). He pretty obviously doesn't see anything wrong with the grandmother's ventriloquism with the mother of Jesus. She loves her family and treats them well; what's wrong with the woman? This isn't a comedy where we are invited to laugh at Baltimorean depravity or New York overintellectual aesthetization, but rather eccentricity in all its glorious forms, where e'er it may be found. And, frankly, it's about damn time. I will give one example, where Pecker is at the artist's dinner in NYC with Ricci by his side, and while Pecker gives his speech Ricci is hissing at a blithely smiling bottle blond next to her:

Ricci: I should have never left the laundromat!

BSBB: I'm sure it's fine, dear.

Ricci: No, you don't know my customers! They're waiting until I leave to break all the rules!

BSBB: I'm sure that's just your imagination.

Ricci: They are pissing in my dryers right now!

BSBB: [mmm-hmms]

In the context of the film at that point, if we were keeping score, the BSBB would have to be counted the more dysfunctional of the two characters, yet Ricci, who we end up identifying with to a surprising degree, is acting far more strangely that the BSBB right here. It doesn't matter, is the message. Though the New Yorkers end up immersing themselves in the posing-free Baltimorean culture...we're all just weirdos here. That is a beautiful message, and a very funny one too.

Attractive Man Count: Pecker gets a 1.

Attractive Woman Count: Ricci gets a 1, these two girls who are all over Pecker's best friend get a collective 1, for a total of 2.

Overall Grade: B+. These are remarkably gentle and soothing Waters.

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