High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Pink Flamingos (tag-line: An Exercise in Poor Taste) is a 1972 transgressive black comedy film written, produced, composed, shot, edited, and directed by John Waters. When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy and thus became one of the most notorious cult films ever made. It made an underground star of the flamboyant drag queen, Divine. The film co-stars David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Cookie Mueller, and Edith Massey. Produced on a budget of only $10,000, it was mostly shot on weekends in Phoenix, a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. After screenings at universities across the U.S. including Harvard College in 1973, the film was distributed theatrically by Saliva Films, and later by New Line Cinema and became a nationally known film.