Divine

there's a way in which we don't have a world with Rocky Horror without a world like the Cockettes.

We don't have, like, Divine came and would hang out with the Cockettes before Divine was huge in all the John Waters movies.

Like, so to kind of get to tell a little bit of that part of San Francisco's story through Paulette and Paulette's house and Paulette's parties was this little bit of like a Let me share my favorite part of San Francisco with the whole world.

Let me share our ancestry.

Question number five.

The John Waters film Pink Flamingos starred the drag icon Divine.

I love John Waters.

I love Divine.

Pink Flamingos is so gross.

So nasty.

such an icon.

And of course, as we mentioned, her appearance is famously very inspired by drag queen Divine.

All you have to do is look at that blue eyeshadow.

It's the same red lips and the hair.

her the boob forward is pretty fab yeah i must say

and i mean like i think divine as i've talked about before like my aunts had like divine stuff everywhere and it was so striking like divine had such a sharp look and so does ursula like it is a thing of like this is such a singular looking person and that's like why i think the ursula as a villain especially when she gets big slays because you're like yeah that is like a villain and yes looks really good and scary

She was also based or inspired by along the look being inspired by Divine.

And again, you can just like see it in like the way that the physicality as well was also inspired by soap opera stars.

And this is one of the reasons like, you know, I feel like trashy cinema and taking it seriously.

It's like Marshall Duchamp putting that autographed urinal in an art museum or, well, we'll probably get to it eventually, but why John Waters has a drag queen named Divine eating dog shit on screen.

You know, it's something that I really find it interesting to take these movies seriously, even though they weren't really

intended.

Ursula from The Little Mermaid was inspired by which iconic drag queen?

What's her name? Divine?

Yes.

Yeah.

Collusion.

You're winning anyway.

Which John Waters film introduced the world to Divine as Babs Johnson? Oh, shit.

Neil, you were bragging.

But then there's, like, you know, sort of faction of drag...

The first drag that I grew up exposed to and understanding was, like, Divine and John Waters, and that certainly has a different sheen on it than the-

Yeah

... um, sort of genderqueer industrial complex of that particular avenue.

...

John Waters was doing it.

John Waters and Divine were, were absolutely independent.

Uh, no one was double-checking their work, so they got to say the most-

So welcome to this deep dive into the sources on the life of Harris Glenn Milstead.

Though, I mean, you almost certainly know him by his stage name, which is Divine.

Right.

The one and only.

Exactly.

It's about how an intensely private individual used a larger than life character, not just as like an artistic statement, but as a literal shield against a world that simply did not know what to do with him.

OK, let's unpack this, because to really grasp the extreme boundary pushing persona of Divine, we have to understand the stifling environment that Glenn was trying to escape in the first place.

You