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'Here I am, closer to the gutter than ever': John Waters gets his Hollywood star

A new exhibition at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures celebrates the life and outrageous cinema of John Waters, queer icon and proud maker of "filth."
Self-described "filth elder" John Waters unveiled his sidewalk star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Monday. "It's about time," said fan Kyle Montgomery, who attended the event. "The world is trash. He knew it all along."

Filmmaker John Waters spent decades creating what he playfully calls "filth" for the big screen: irreverent, campy movies set in his hometown, Baltimore. After decades of being proudly outside the mainstream, the subversive auteur is now enjoying some very mainstream Hollywood attention. To coincide with the opening of major retrospective of his career at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, this week he was also immortalized in Los Angeles cement.

"Here I am, closer to the gutter than ever," he joked at the red-carpet ceremony for his sidewalk star this week. "The Hollywood Walk of Fame: You're the best and I hope the most desperate showbiz rejects walk over me here and feel some sort of respect

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