Desperate Living

Desperate Living is a 1977 American black comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters. The film stars Liz Renay, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Susan Lowe, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Jean Hill. It is the third installment of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), and the only one to not feature Divine. The film generated a cult following around Renay, who appeared in at least two dozen other films. Following the murder of her husband, a suburban housewife and her lesbian lover agree to be exiled to a shantytown. The town is under the control of a tyrannical queen regnant, but the housewife soon becomes the queen's main assistant in terrorizing the town's population. Eventually, a revolt kills both the queen and her assistant. Plot Neurotic and delusional suburban housewife Peggy Gravel and her overweight nurse, Grizelda Brown, go on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband Bosley to death. A cross-dressing policeman arrests the pair and gives them an ultimatum: go to jail or be exiled to Mortville, a filthy shantytown ruled by the evil Queen Carlotta and her treasonous daughter, Princess Coo-Coo.