Be gay, do crime! A brief history of the lesbian thriller

And speaking of John Waters, the influential director has made a number of queer criminal capers in his time. The best of the bunch, the crude and surreal Female Trouble, follows Dawn Davenport (played by Divine) ‒ a troublemaking highschooler who goes on the run after her family refuse to buy her a pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas. While hitch-hiking, she becomes pregnant with her child Taffy, and much to Taffy’s increasing disapproval, she embarks on a bizarre spree of violence, murder, and criminality alongside a modelling career. Though she’s eventually captured by the police after gunning down her own audience during a bonkers nightclub performance, and is later sentenced to death, she still finds time to have a lesbian love affair with fellow inmate Earnestine, and delivers an Academy Award-worthy acceptance speech from the electric chair. Iconic levels of villainary.