Exploiting the Archives: Russ Meyer is a Filthy Motherfucker

Back in the early days of The A.V Club, my editor used to like to say that we specialized in interviewing bitter, jilted cranks. This was partially out of necessity. At that point, we were David and not yet Goliath, so we had to scramble to find people willing to do an interview with the entertainment side of a semi-obscure satirical newspaper. 

But we also interviewed bitter, jilted cranks because they are inherently more interesting than slick, shiny, new successes. Bitter, jilted cranks were our preference. Twenty-one years later, I’m the bitter, jilted crank, wondering where the hell everything went wrong. 

One of the first interviews I did as a twenty-two year old staffer in the late 1990s was with exploitation legend Russ Meyer. I was so naive that I thought that Meyer would be grateful for a chance to discuss his craft and life’s work in a serious, substantive fashion. 

How wrong could I have possibly been? Meyer had absolutely zero interest in discussing the art and craft of film and a ferocious, insatiable appetite to talk about tits. And sex. And boobs. And sex. And did I mention the boobs? 

It became apparent pretty early on that Meyer was trying to shock me by being as bold and brazen as possible, just as he tried to shock John Waters when Waters interviewed him for one of his books. 

Meyer was so unrelentingly filthy that his patter assumed a crazy kind of vulgar poetry. I was absolutely hypnotized by the lurid nature of Meyer’s banter. 

Here’s a typical exchange between the 22 year old me and the 70-something Meyer: 

O: So, you'll be making a film sometime soon?

RM: Yes. I like the whole idea of eating pussy, too. It's very good. Just get in there and chew right to the nub.

Pretty much the interview went that way. When I hung up the phone, I felt like a rodeo rider who'd just gone the distance on a deadly bucking bronco. It remains one of my favorite interviews of all time. 

Many years later, I had the honor of being a talking head on the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls DVD (you can check me out in the special features of the Criterion Blu-Ray, in the old Onion office. 

One of the special features ends with me saying, “So I asked Meyer what brought him and Roger Ebert and the man said, ‘Tits. Pure and simple, the man loves tits!” 

In another context, that might seem like a crude or inappropriate thing to say about one of your heroes and role models but in this case it seems not only fitting but poetically apt. One of the reasons we love and revere Ebert is because he was so open and honest about who he was and what he loved, and that included tits. There’s nothing wrong with that. Like Meyer, Ebert was an honest vulgarian, equally at home writing about the loftiest highbrow art and the sleaziest, most libidinal trash. 

Honor twenty one years of periodic excellence in journalism, join a nice community, get access to patron-exclusive content and stick it to the Man by pledging as little as a dollar a month (that won’t even cover a hamburger at McDonald’s, after taxes) over at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace