Polyester (film)

Polyester is a 1981 American satirical black comedy film written, produced, and directed by John Waters, and starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, David Samson, Mary Garlington, Ken King, Mink Stole, Joni Ruth White, and Stiv Bators. It satirizes the melodrama film genre and the "woman's film" category, particularly the work of Douglas Sirk, which directly influenced this film. The film is also a satire of suburban life in the early 1980s, involving topics such as divorce, abortion, adultery, alcoholism, racial stereotypes, foot fetishism, and the religious right. Polyester was filmed in Waters' native Baltimore, Maryland, like all of his previous films. It featured a gimmick called Odorama, whereby moviegoers could smell what they were viewing on-screen with special scratch-and-sniff cards (a stylistic tribute to the work of William Castle, whose films typically featured attention-grabbing gimmicks). Following Stunts (1977), Polyester was among the earliest films that New Line Cinema produced.