This Is the John Waters Film That Inspired Aubrey Plaza’s Sense of Humor

It comes as no surprise to anyone that actor and comedian Aubrey Plaza is a big John Waters fan, but her favorite Waters flick has us wondering – are those, pussy willows?

When Waters announced his return to feature filmmaking after a twenty-year hiatus back in April, the professed “Pope of Trash” chose Plaza to be his newest heroine over half a century after the incomparable Divine showed the transgressive film world what it meant to be a truly obscene leading lady. Waters’ newest project is a film adaptation of his 2022 debut novel Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance, which told the story of a professional con artist Marsha "Liarmouth" Sprinkle as she attempts a daring heist at Baltimore/Washington International Airport (obviously) alonside her partner in crime and in passion Daryl, to whom Marsha has promised sex exactly once a year. In the film, Plaza will play Marsha, and Janet Snakehole herself will fulfill her dream to work with the iconic cult filmmaker that she’s had since Waters first taught Plaza her weirdo sense of humor in the mid-1990s.

During a recent visit to Kim’s Video at Alamo Drafthouse in New York City, Plaza explained how Waters was responsible for her comedy awakening. Plaza revealed, “The John Waters thing blew my mind. Serial Mom, you know,” before pantomiming her head exploding.

“I worked at a mom and pop shop video store called Classic Video in Wilmington, Delaware,” Plaza explained of her early relationship with the medium of film, “To be honest, the biggest thing I remember, really, is that we had a really big porn section, and, um, I was in high school.”

One of the best perks of working in a video store is, naturally, being able to watch movies all day, and a teenaged Plaza used this gig to hone her taste in cinema while she was mere feet away from the porn section. Said Plaza, “There was a TV set-up right by the front desk, and I could put on whatever movie I wanted and just sit and watch it all day.” 

“At that time, I was getting really into John Waters, I was getting really into Waiting for Guffman and Christopher Guest movies, and I was getting really into…" Plaza said before trailing off as the camera operator zoomed in on her feet. “You got a foot thing?” she asked the cameraman, who claimed innocence. “Yeah, right,” she sarcastically replied.

“Serial Mom for me was like, oh my God, I was laughing – I thought it was the funniest shit I'd ever seen," Plaza said of her favorite Waters film. "And then, of course, I watched all his other movies. I just think, like, he just doesn't care. It's so silly and over the top and ridiculous.”

Serial Mom was Waters' 1994 black comedy slasher film and suburban satire about an upper-middle-class housewife, played by Kathleen Turner, who, as the title suggests, is secretly a serial killer. As is the case in much of Waters' work, the fetishization of violence, middle-class malaise and utter camp nonsense all play central roles in the story, and it's easy to see how Turner's performance led Plaza down the path of bizarro comedy that culminated in her getting a lead role in Waters' comeback movie.

I wonder what Parks and Recreation would have looked like if Greg Daniels and Michael Shur let Plaza bring a more Waters-like approach to the sitcom – I'm sure she would have loved to give Ann Perkins a call at the Cocksuckers residence.