Polyester is a 1981
John Waters movie starring
Divine,
Edith Massey,
David Samson,
Mary Garlington,
Mink Stole,
Tab Hunter and
Ken King.
Francine Fishpaw (Divine) is an obese housewife with an uncanny sense of smell. The movie originally included scratch and sniff Odorama cards to reflect certain smells Francine encountered in the movie. Francine is slowly driven insane by her husband Elmer (Samson), who owns and operates a local porn theatre, her glue-snorting son Dexter (King), who has a criminal foot fetish, and her teenage slut daughter Lu-lu (Garlington), who becomes pregnant and desires an abortion.
This film is widely regarded by Waters fans as the turning point of his filmmaking career, dividing low-budget trashfests from higher-budget trashfests.