Photos: Check Out Original HAIRSPRAY Costumes New John Waters Exhibition at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

John Waters: Pope of Trash, the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the eponymous artist’s contributions to cinema, opened at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures over the weekend.

The exhibition includes the costumes from Waters' Hairspray film, which inspired the Tony-winning musical of the same name. Props from Waters' 1990 film Cry Baby, also inspired a Broadway musical, are also featured.

Hairspray, the quirky story of a plus-sized Baltimore teen and her friends integrating a local television dance show in the early 1960s, wasn't a huge success at first but has gone on to have a life of its own.

It was remade as a Tony Award-winning musical on Broadway, a megahit musical film in 2007 and a live TV version in 2016. But in John Waters' 1988 original, it was an 18-year-old Ricki Lake who was first tapped to play the lead role of Tracy Turnblad. 

Check out photos of original props and costumes from Hairspray and Cry Baby below!

Exploring his process, themes, and unmatched moviemaking approach, the exhibition traces the grotesque, daring, deliberately tacky, hilarious, and salacious elements that recur throughout Waters’s sixty-year career of filmmaking and reveals how his movies have redefined independent cinema.

On view through August 4, 2024, John Waters: Pope of Trash journeys through Waters’s complete filmography, from his do-it-yourself independent beginnings to his rebellious Hollywood productions, including four shorts and twelve feature films.

Collaborating closely with Waters—anointed the “Pope of Trash” by author William S. Burroughs—as well as members of his casts and crews, the co-curators selected more than 400 works for the exhibition, many of which have never been displayed publicly.