Honfest, an annual celebration of vintage Baltimore kitsch, is stirring controversy in Charm City. Central to the festival are the 1950’s style beehive hairdos and kitschy outfits (seen left) donned by festival goers which proponents contend are a good natured send up of the fashions of Baltimore’s recent past. However, critics point out that those rocking these styles are primarily upper middle class residents of the city or, worse yet, suburban commuters whose masquerade could easily be interpreted as a put down on Baltimore’s working class residents with whom the styles were popular. Others point out that with the festival now entering its fourteenth year, the joke is getting a little old.

“To me, it’s used up,” Baltimore filmmaker John Waters told the Baltimore Sun in an article about the controversy. “It’s condescending now. The people that celebrate it are not from it. I feel that in some weird way they’re looking slightly down on it. I only celebrate something I can look up to.” Waters’ entry into the debate has added considerable gravitas to the arguments of the event’s detractors, with much of Honfest’s imagery and style sense being drawn from the director’s Baltimore-set films such as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Polyester.

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