The characters engage in several grotesque, bizarre, and explicitly crude situations, and upon the film's re-release in 1997 it was rated NC-17 by the MPAA "for a wide range of perversions in explicit detail". It was filmed in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland, where Waters and most of the cast and crew grew up.
Featuring pig heads, cannibalism, and feces—oh my! —the film was given an NC-17 by the MPAA for its “wide range of perversions in explicit details” and banned in Australia, Norway, and—allegedly still to this day—in Hicksville, New York.
"Pink Flamingos" contains some memorably repulsive scenes like a sex scene with a chicken and the scene where Divine eats fresh dog feces. Yes,the movie is shocking and funny at the same time,but the biggest laughs come from the actors' lines. Check out especially this line from Divine:"Kill everyone now!
Bearing an NC-17 rating — it deserves nothing less — "Pink Flamingos" features copious nudity, cannibalism, assault, vomiting, unsimulated sex, torture, real animal death, and real coprophagy.
PINK FLAMINGOS: The most controversial film in history
What do flamingos mean in your front yard?
The decades old tradition of flamingo yard flocking has evolved and taken the form of dozens of different animals, shapes, and sizes. Ultimately, It's a creative way to wish someone good luck, congratulate them, or just show you're thinking of them.
“Flocking” is the term used for covering someone's yard in plastic flamingos and the person then has to pay to remove it from their yard or pay more to choose the next victim.
In the film, Divine plays a criminal who battles a pair of kidnappers, portrayed by David Lochary and Mink Stole, for the title of "the filthiest person alive," a contest the former comprehensively wins by eating dog excrement. "That was always the end," Waters says of the sequence.
Often regarded as an exercise in poor taste, this could honestly be one of the hardest movies to sit through out there, and yet that's what makes it as fascinating to watch as it is to cringe at.
The BBFC-approved cut of Pink Flamingos came out on video in 1991, but it wasn't until 2008 that an 18-certificate was awarded to the full, unexpurgated film – and then the distributors decided to cancel the release.
“Flamingos, both male and female, can actually lose their pink coloring while they're raising their young because it's such an intensive process, and so much of their food and energy goes to their chicks… but eventually they get their pink back.
Did they really kill a chicken in this? Yes, the chicken really died in the sex scene. According to John Waters it was later cooked and eaten by the crew.
The pink flamingo is just about 60 years old. Yes, the plastic lawn ornament was actually created by someone; designer Don Featherstone to be exact, during his second year on the job at Union Products.
Male and female flamingo coloration is the same. Newly-hatched chicks are gray or white. Juveniles are grayish, taking approximately one to two years to obtain full adult coloration. Parents may lose some of their pink coloration while raising young.
This was the very first film to be given a PG-13 rating, but it was shelved for five months, making Red Dawn (1984) the first film to be *released* with the PG-13 rating.
You have to go way out on a limb and give 'em something that the studios would never want to give them." The stunt worked, and "Pink Flamingos" made $7 million at the box office against its tiny budget, a cash loan from Waters parents who, he maintains, never saw the movie.
You may have heard that it's because they eat shrimp, but the real answer is a little more complex. Flamingos and shrimp are actually both pink from eating algae that contains carotenoid pigments. Flamingos eat both algae and shrimp-like critters, and both contribute to their fabulous pinkness.
In the dead of the night, your members place the flamingos in the yards of the friends that all of your supporters paid to have “Flamingoed”. Each of the flocks will have a note explaining how a friend of theirs paid to have them “Flamingoed” in support of your fundraiser.
Once flocked, the victim may donate any amount to SEICAA to remove the flock of plastic flamingos. If the victim makes a donation, they choose where to send the flock next; if not, SEICAA will remove the flock free of charge after a day or so. Victims are encouraged not to damage the flock.
