Ricki Lake presented director John
Waters with Outfest 2012's Achievement Award as the 30th
iteration of Los Angele's LGBT film festival kicked off on Friday.
“At a time when actors, singers and
news anchors would never have dreamed about discussing such matters
publicly, both John and his work were unapologeticly queer,” Lake
said in introducing the filmmaker.
Waters first found fame in the early
70s producing trash films which gained a cult following, including
Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living and Polyester.
He crossed over to mainstream film making in 1988 with Hairspray,
which introduced Ricki Lake.
In accepting the award, Waters thanked
his gay fans.
“I want to thank everyone for letting
me get away with this for 50 years,” Waters said. “Really,
seriously, gay people gave me the confidence and freedom to be the
person I am today – right from the beginning.”
“I've been lucky. My career has been
understood right from the beginning. Even negative reviews I turned
into a career. And gay people have always been there and together
we've learned that we turn pain into laughter. We will not only
survive, we'll win. And if we can laugh at the most hurtful
responses we've ever had in our life, we'll be the strongest minority
of all,” he added. (The video is embedded in the right panel of
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