Flirting with Biases Pt. 3: Film

Cecil B. Demented

written and directed by John Waters (2000)

Movie patrons flee screaming as a director on set exclaims, ‘Patch Adams, you’re dead!’ So goes this commercial (relatively speaking) yet quintessentially Waters work of filmmaking and terrorism. With nods to fellow ‘weirdos’ like Fassbinder and Warhol, and middle fingers for about everyone else, Demented is a model for momentous satire.

Compact, powerful and filled with more fanatically quotable dialogue than most contemporaries’ filmographies combined, it works because everyone is a target. The absurdist band of cine-punks is too ecstatically deluded to know how hilarious and cathartic they all are. Hollywood has its David in this must-see alt-auteur vision.