Listen: How John Waters Learned To Love Middle America Through Hitchhiking

John Waters thought he knew his fan base — low culture and high, nothing in the middle. "I get along in prison, I get along at Cannes," the filmmaker told WBUR's Robin Young. "It's a shopping center I've got trouble in...the mall walkers."

Listen to him explain how that perception got turned upside down when he spent some time hitchhiking across America:

You can listen to Waters' full interview — including the story of the unexpected friendship he formed with a young Republican city councilman — recorded in front of an audience at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge as part of a Harvard Book Store event.