POLYESTER at 40: An Odorama™ Breakdown

by Matthew Crump, Staff Writer

What better smell is there than a rose? The aroma is undeniably lovely, but it’s only a warm-up in the filthy, tasteless world of John Waters.

Polymer No. 1 — Roses

No, this isn’t a perfume advertisement. MovieJawn would never sell out like that. Me, on the other hand, will happily sell out my creative labor to the first schmuck that wants to buy it. For the schmucks that are still with me, let me break down–in proper Dr. Arnold Quakenshaw style–how this anniversary review is going to work: 

Because Polyester has now been around for 40 whoppin’ years, there’s already been plenty said about it in the way of reviews. Instead of regurgitating the insert inside the Criterion Collection DVD re-release that began flying off the shelves in 2019, I’m going to review the other dvd insert: the infamous Odorama™ card. 

Thanks to Lindsay Erin Miller, my badass friend currently studying/working in film preservation, I learned that the way the card works is by mixing together a scented oil and a water-based polymer. So when you see a new Polymer No., it means we’re moving onto the next entry in this miasmic review. Try to keep up.

Also, apparently the Prince of Puke himself was heavily involved in choosing the smells for the card’s re-release. So, in a way, I guess I’m also indirectly reviewing John Waters’ sense of smell. If he ever reads this, I hope it is more refreshing than the decades of reviews spent analyzing his bad taste.

Polymer No.2 — Flatulence

Because obviously we are too classy here to use the street name. I only got to the second smell and already I am convinced my card is broken. When the big number 2 flashes across the screen, prompting the viewer to give their Odorama™ card the ‘ol scratch-n-sniff, Francine Fishpaw has just gotten into bed after a long day with her shitty husband. 

“Shitty” works on multiple levels. Francine takes a whiff of a bizarre 1950s-esque deodorizer on her bedside table, perfectly establishing that she and her schnoz are obsessed with avoiding all of life’s bad smells… then her husband rips one in his sleep. The gag here, as with most of the other polymers, is that the audience is expecting to get a pleasant smell but instead gets a vile one.

I don’t know who mixed up their scents over at Criterion, but my card definitely got swapped with the bedroom deodorizer. Or maybe their farts are just as pretentious as their branding? I don’t know, but, in an effort to remain an optimist, I’m going to call this polymer a perfect metaphor for my relationship with John Waters movies: when everyone else seems to be seeing shit, I’m seeing a work of art.

Polymer No.3 — Model Building Glue

In this scene, we have Lulu, Francine’s daughter, huffing something out of a paper bag with her bad-boy boyfriend. Before I read her for her lack-of-filth, I must admit that Lulu is a highly underrated John Waters character. She gets straight F’s on her report card, flips her mother off under the kitchen table, and dances everywhere she goes. While I admire her in every way, glue huffing was a little too suburban for my own trailer trash upbringing. All that to say, whatever smell came out of my Odorama™ card was falling on defunct nostrils. I’m going to give this one a highly uninformed B-.

Polymer No.4 — Pizza

Jesus CHRIST this one was bad. Wasn’t this smell supposed to be one of the slightly less gross ones? It’s by far the most repulsive one on the card. The interns over at Criterion Collection are not getting paid enough to share a hazardous workplace environment with this smell.

Polyester marks many milestones in John Waters career, one being that it was his last film where the cast & crew weren’t covered by the SAG union. Seeing that it was also one of the first films where he expanded his cast outside of his personal circle of friends (better known as the Dreamlanders) this meant there was a lot of lying about pulling 20+ straight hours on set to prevent production from being shut down. It was particularly a problem for Tab Hunter, the well-established Hollywood golden era actor who went against his agent’s wishes to take a role where he smooches on a drag queen.

Even so, this movie also marks Waters biggest budget yet, jumping from $65,000 on Desperate Living to the incredulous six-digit $300,000 for Polyester. This allowed for bigger names and swanky cinematography, but still landed Tab Hunter eating 2 AM pizza that I can only hope tasted better than the Odorama™ card smells. I think Waters himself sums up this particular polymer best in the smell testing special feature on the DVD, saying, “God, I’m glad this pizza wasn’t delivered to my house.” 

Polymer No.5 — Gasoline

From an olfactory standpoint, this one’s not quite as powerful as I think it could be but it is a solid contribution to the more Sirkian elements of the plot. By this point in the film, Francine Fishpaw’s life has gone completely off the rails as she descends into a melodramatic binge-drinking sequence. She’s being bullied by almost everyone in her life in the most absurd ways—drugged out foot-stomping from her “criminally insane” son, her daughter openly stealing money from her purse while threatening to pay for an abortion, taunts from her ex-husband over an intercom on a car circling her cul de sac—but perhaps worst of all is her fat-shaming mother, La Rue. 

She catches Francine in some particularly dramatic lighting, splayed out by a broken bottle trying to lap up a puddle of booze off the ground. The evil La Rue teases her with a flask which Francine eagerly starts to gulp down before she spews it everywhere. “You see what an alcoholic you are,” her mother sneers. “You’d even drink gasoline if it was in a bottle!” Bonus points for being the most sinister polymer on the card.

Polymer No.6 — Skunk

Alright, we gotta get this together. Really, did I get the wrong card? Here we have Cuddles, Francine’s one and only friend, dragging her to the park for a picnic, post-suicide attempt. They walk through a meadow while Cuddles proclaims the beauty of nature and glory of god. Francine sits down on their blanket, the sun shining on her face as she prepares to crack open a Tab (“for their diet”), when the 6 starts to blink. As she inches towards this moment of happiness, a skunk appears and ants take over her and Cuddles’ pants.

So explain to me then, why the hell was I smelling the meadow? Is there a refund process? Can a smell be refunded? I paid to be repulsed, goddammit. The only thing keeping me going at this point is Edith Massey’s performance, which is always my favorite part of any early John Waters movie. It’s taking every ounce of my willpower to not just let the rest of this article be me waxing poems about my love for the late Edie.

Polymer No.7 — Natural Gas

One interesting approach Waters takes with his veteran Dreamlanders in Polyester is giving them total character reversals. Where Mink Stole is typically the uptight, suburban gal, she is now the corn-rowed mistress from the wrong side of the tracks. Where Edith Massey is typically the low-class queen of the bums, she is now a maid who inherited a fortune and is in preparation for her debutante ball. And, of course, where Divine is typically the counter-cultural monster that America was always so ready to be afraid of, she is now the ultimate damsel in distress, challenging even Divine’s most vehement critics to finally consider her as an actor in his own right.

I would say this scene is “purr” Francine’s lowest point but John Waters always has a plan to make things worse. Coming home from the picnic, Francine finds four murder/suicides in her home, including the family dog. As Francine sniffs her way to the kitchen, the 7 starts to blink. Faster than you can get your fingernail off the Odorama™ card and up to your nose, it’s revealed that Lulu has decided to try and go out Sylvia Plath style. ……... A+.

Polymer No. 8 — New Car Smell

The way this lovely fragrance makes it into the trash heap is by way of Francine’s love-at-first-sight with Todd Tomorrow... at a car crash along the highway. The story behind this scene is simply too good to pass up: 

While a large majority of Polyester is filmed inside the Fishpaw residence, no part of the home was replicated on a set. It was all an actual home that was rented out in a Baltimore neighborhood. According to Waters, most of the neighbors were friendly (a few of which even made it into the movie), but as the midnight shoots of Divine screaming in the front yard kept progressing, tensions rose. 

Early one Sunday morning toward the end of principal photography, they shoot this highway car crash scene with a fake decapitated head rolling around on the road. Apparently, people from the surrounding area saw the scene driving by on their way to church and began a prayer-chain that took off like a wildfire. By the time it was all revealed to be a movie set, the entire neighborhood was thrown into an outrage. Just in time too, since Waters had just wrapped the movie.

Oh, the polymer? It’s good, but it’s also just the same piney scent hanging from every rearview mirror in America. Much like Allison ala Cry Baby, "I'm so tired of being good." I want a smell that's bad.

Polymer No. 9 — Dirty Shoes

This is it. This is by far the most notorious smell in the film. So much so, that I already know the gag that’s coming, but I don’t care. This is why I bought the Criterion Collection Edition (on sale because John Waters taught me to be proud of the cheap trash that I am). To smell this smell. 

Francine is in the middle of her mental breakdown (truly some of Divine’s best acting). The number 9 begins to blink as her evil mother dangles a beautiful bouquet of flowers in front of her face, only to then THRUST A PAIR OF DIRTY OLD SNEAK— flowers... My card has flowers. 

I was going to try and make some extended metaphor about how the experience of being introduced to John Waters with Hairspray then digging back into older films like Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos is fully encapsulated by this scen— ah, fuck it. I’ve been spared by this card too many times before.

Polymer No. 10 — Air Freshener

The final scene (and the final smell) of a John Waters film are usually a much needed relief. No matter what your opinion is on Waters, with all the insanity his characters endure, he is at least consistent with having those who are truly evil meet a violent end. Anyone who resents suburbia and the capitalism it strives on enough to make this whacked out film is clearly trying to make an argument for a more tolerant world, even if it takes a haphazard route getting there. 

In giving us Francine Fishpaw, he offers a look at the grime and stench that middle-class America obsesses over covering up with cloying, suffocating scents. But maybe the final aerosol can that Cuddles puts into the hands of Francine isn’t supposed to be that. When Francine squeezes that nozzle and throws an arc of freshener into the camera, perhaps it’s representative of her own character arc. The journey through the muck and mire of her life, that has somehow landed her back in her cul de sac, this time as a more fully realized individual. The 10 blinks across the screen. This is the closest our damsel is going to get to a happy ending. I scratch the last pink dot with a final wind of gusto, then raise it to my proboscis. It makes me sick.