Divine: Who Influenced the Icon of Camp and Drag?

By the time Divine strutted into John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972), he wasn’t just playing a character—he was channeling a lifetime of influences that shaped his audacious, glitter-drenched persona. Here’s how key figures and movements forged the legacy of drag’s most unforgettable icon.

How did John Waters shape Divine’s career?

John Waters wasn’t just Divine’s director; he was his creative mirror. The two met in the 1960s, when Waters cast Harris Glenn Milstead (Divine’s birth name) as a vampire in an amateur film. Waters wrote roles specifically for Divine’s towering frame and razor-sharp eyeliner, crafting antiheroes like Babs Johnson (Female Trouble) who reveled in chaos. Their partnership blurred art and life: Waters once called Divine “the only actress who could cry while eating a cheeseburger.” Their collaboration turned camp into a weapon, using trashy aesthetics to mock middle-class morality.

What role did the camp aesthetic play in Divine’s persona?

Susan Sontag’s Notes on “Camp” (1966) argued that camp celebrates artifice over sincerity, finding beauty in the grotesque. Divine embodied this philosophy. His characters—over-the-top, unapologetically vulgar—were love letters to bad taste. He didn’t just wear drag; he exaggerated it, using pancake makeup and lurid wigs to mock Hollywood’s polished glamour. This ethos extended to his music career, like the 1981 disco hit You Think You’re a Man, which blended sincerity and satire.

Which Hollywood bombshells inspired Divine’s look?

Divine didn’t just parody icons—he weaponized their tropes. He cited Marilyn Monroe’s vulnerability and Elizabeth Taylor’s theatricality as influences, but his interpretation was deliberately distorted. His signature eye makeup (thick, arched brows and false lashes) mimicked 1950s pinups, while his size challenged Hollywood’s obsession with waifish femininity. Even his voice—a booming, masculine tone—subverted expectations. “I wanted to be the biggest, most monstrous female movie star that ever lived,” he said.

How did early drag pioneers influence Divine’s style?

Before Divine, there was the Jewel Box Revue, a 1950s–60s touring troupe featuring Stormé DeLarverie, a butch lesbian drag king. While Divine’s work was more outrageous, he drew from drag’s theatrical roots. Unlike the Revue’s polished acts, though, he embraced dirt and danger. He once called cross-dressing “a way of making a statement without speaking,” a philosophy rooted in the underground clubs of Baltimore and New York.

What impact did LGBTQ+ counterculture have on Divine’s legacy?

Divine emerged during the 1960s drag renaissance, a time when queer performers reclaimed art as resistance. His films, filled with gross-out humor and queer defiance, mirrored the post-Stonewall era’s radical politics. Though he disliked being labeled a “drag queen” (“I’m an actress!”), his characters gave visibility to LGBTQ+ communities. His appearance in Hairspray (1988) even parodied suburban racism, turning his mother’s conservative worldview into satire—a nod to his roots as a queer kid from Lutherville, Maryland.

Were horror films and theatrical villains an influence?

Divine’s villains—like the trash-eating Mama Divine in Pink Flamingos—were modeled after horror’s campy antagonists. He adored Joan Crawford’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and the female monsters of 1930s cinema. His performances were grotesque comedies, where blood and vomit became punchlines. This love of the macabre stemmed from childhood: he once recalled watching Universal horror films with his grandmother, who’d laugh at the same shocks that terrified him.

Chat with Divine to explore his influences

Divine’s legacy isn’t just a product of his collaborators—it’s an alchemy of rebellion, satire, and relentless self-reinvention. To hear how he’d describe his own influences today, or to ask where he found the courage to defy every boundary, chat with Divine on HoloDream.

Your turn: Dive deeper into the mind of the drag icon who turned trash into art. Ask Divine how he’d react to modern drag culture—or why he’d never trade his pearls for a TikTok filter.