Director John Waters earned the title "King of Bad Taste" in 1972 for Pink Flamingos, a raunchy film that makes a laughing matter of most every type of perversion. The film ushered in a new era for popular culture, in which the shocking and bizarre would attract growing audiences and profits, penetrating every medium from mainstream newspapers to day-time television talk shows. Waters refined his obsession with "good bad taste"—a term he coined—over several decades, creating a new movie genre of the bizarre, according to director David Lynch.

Waters identifies himself as a writer foremost, but he is an example of an entrepreneur who uses many channels effectively. His witty essays have been collected in two volumes, Shock Value (1981) and Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters (1983); collections of his screenplays and photographs also have been published. He has made a handful of cameo...