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Review: A Dirty Shame (2004), How a Budget Ruined the Pope of Trash

A Dirty Shame Selma Blair breasts

&NewLine;<p>John Waters&comma; the unequivocal &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Pope of Trash&comma;” has not directed a feature in over two decades&period; The reason&quest; <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> &lpar;2004&rpar;&period; As a fan of Tracey Ullman&comma; I went into <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> expecting something genuinely funny that would land comfortably between low-brow and high-brow humor&period; I also respect — though don&&num;8217&semi;t necessarily <em>enjoy<&sol;em> — John Waters’ love for transgression and all things trashy&comma; so I expected <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> to lean much closer to the low-brow than the high&period; What I didn’t expect was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> tells the story of Sylvia Stickles &lpar;Tracey Ullman&rpar;&comma; who is one of the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;neuters&comma;” a puritanical group of conservative&comma; anti-sex citizens of Baltimore&comma; Maryland&period; They are opposed by the small but growing group of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;perverts&comma;” sex addicts looking to break every taboo&period; Sylvia’s daughter&comma; Caprice &lpar;Selma Blair&rpar;&comma; remains locked up because she is one of the aforementioned perverts and a favorite go-go dancer at the local dive bar&comma; thanks in no small part to her comically large breasts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>When Sylvia Stickles gets hit in the head by a passing car&comma; she encounters Ray-Ray Perkins &lpar;Johnny Knoxville&rpar;&comma; the local mechanic and a self-appointed &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Sex Saint&period;” He opens Sylvia’s eyes to decadence and hedonism&period; As more people hit their heads in strange ways and become sex-crazed&comma; chaos ensues as the neuters and the perverts clash throughout town&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Based on the above description&comma; you might think that <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> is a rompy sexploitation film&period; There’s just one problem&colon; there’s no sex&excl; There are one or two sequences that feature nudity&comma; but it is a surprisingly tame film with a very immature approach to anything explicit&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2025&sol;08&sol;MV5BMTU2Njg3Njg0N15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDMwMDM1NA&commat;&commat;&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;-1024x689&period;jpg" alt&equals;"A Dirty Shame &lpar;2004&rpar;" class&equals;"wp-image-2961"&sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-element-caption"><em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> &lpar;2004&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If you grew up with the Internet &lpar;like I did&rpar;&comma; do you remember the first time you Googled things about sex to see what would come up&quest; Well&comma; take that first search history&comma; sanitize it&comma; and you&&num;8217&semi;ve got <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em>&period; It’s like diving into a teenager’s imagination to see what they think sex is like&comma; or what they think could be &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;edgy&period;” Rather than satirizing American society’s more prudish elements&comma; the film just knocks you over the head with the cheapest&comma; dumbest double-entendres and sexual innuendos imaginable&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Apparently&comma; John Waters made the film after learning about new sexual terms on the Internet&comma; and it shows&period; The characters overexplain terms that&comma; at least nowadays &lpar;more than two decades after the film was made&rpar;&comma; are pretty common knowledge&period; For example&comma; a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Bear” is typically a larger&comma; hairy gay man&period; Most of us know this&period; Somehow&comma; that in itself gets turned into one of many ill-advised running gags throughout the film&period; It’s not a joke&comma; it’s just a description&period; Yet&comma; somehow&comma; it’s meant to be funny&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>I’m actually surprised that the film got an NC-17 rating&comma; because it’s so unbelievably shy in its approach to sex&period; Just having people grope each other and make out and use &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;dirty” words is enough to warrant the rating&comma; apparently&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>But I’ve gotten away from the one and only worthwhile conclusion I could make from this film&colon; some indie filmmakers really shouldn’t be given a budget&period; John Waters did far more to push the boundaries of what could be shown in a film with &dollar;12&comma;000 when he made <em>Pink Flamingos<&sol;em> &lpar;1972&rpar; than he did with &dollar;15 million in 2004&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> is aptly named&period; It’s a shame that some filmmakers&comma; when given enough room &lpar;i&period;e&period; budget&rpar; to do everything they’ve ever wanted&comma; blow it&period; John Waters&comma; like many indie filmmakers before him&comma; was better off figuring out how to do things without money than throwing bags of cash at a bad idea&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><strong>» Also Check Out&colon;<&sol;strong> <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;2021&sol;09&sol;30&sol;10-best-severin-films-for-philosophy-students&sol;">10 Best Severin Films for Philosophy Students<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p><em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> is the worst of Waters&&num;8217&semi; forays into &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;mainstream” filmmaking&comma; following <em>Cecile B&period; Demented<&sol;em> &lpar;2000&rpar; and <em>Pecker<&sol;em> &lpar;1998&rpar;&period; The budgets kept getting bigger with each subsequent film&comma; but the ideas kept getting worse&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<figure class&equals;"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2025&sol;08&sol;MV5BNDg3NzIzOTU4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODIwMDM1NA&commat;&commat;&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;-1024x689&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Tracey Ullman and Selma Blair in A Dirty Shame" class&equals;"wp-image-2962"&sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-element-caption"><em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> &lpar;2004&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>As has been discussed ad nauseam&comma; a lack of funding often forces filmmakers to get more creative&period; I know that some filmmakers have disagreed with this idea&period; In an interview&comma; Orson Welles famously answered&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Did my poverty help my creativity&quest; Uh&comma; no&period;” But as someone who worked in and around both independent and commercial films for years&comma; I personally believe that money is&comma; more often than not&comma; an excuse to be less creative&period; It’s not always the case&comma; but working with micro-budgets usually forces the brain to figure out the most creative way to tell a story&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>As the &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Pope of Trash&comma;” John Waters was meant to be forever in the world of micro-budget filmmaking&period; Of course&comma; one would expect that the longer you work&comma; the more acclaim you achieve&comma; and the more money you deserve to make for your efforts&period; And I agree&excl; But pouring more money into the production only drains Waters of what made his early films so distinctive&period; They were dirty&comma; ugly&comma; abhorrent even&period; <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> looks like a white-washed bastardization of many of his ideas rolled into an incoherent mess of a film&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>There are very few films that I would categorize as unwatchable&comma; but <em>A Dirty Shame<&sol;em> runs dangerously close to falling into that category&period; It’s not <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;2021&sol;04&sol;13&sol;a-serbian-film-most-disturbing-movie&sol;">the most disturbing film of all time<&sol;a> — far from it&period; What I would have given for it to be disturbing&comma; repulsive&comma; or transgressive in any meaningful way&excl; Instead&comma; when the credits rolled&comma; it truly felt like one of those moments when I get very quiet and contemplative&period; I think about the span of my life&comma; how fast time flies by&comma; and how little time we have on this Earth&period; With great dread&comma; I could only mutter to myself&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Well&comma; I will never get those 84 minutes back&period;”&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size">A Dirty Shame &lpar;2004&rpar; Movie Rating&colon; &starf; out of 5<&sol;h2>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If you hate yourself and you’d like to watch <em>A Dirty Shame <&sol;em>&lpar;2004&rpar;&comma; the film is currently available to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;amzn&period;to&sol;418H73l" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noreferrer noopener">rent or purchase via Amazon<&sol;a>&period; For more film reviews like this one&comma; be sure to check out the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;philosophyinfilm&period;com&sol;">Philosophy in Film homepage<&sol;a>&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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