Female Trouble

Female Trouble

Year: 1974

Runtime: 97 mins

Language: English

Director: John Waters

ComedyCrime

From a teen tormented by a Christmas obsession for coveted cha‑cha heels, Dawn Davenport’s relentless pursuit of fame turns her into a monstrous, egomaniacal celebrity. Her unchecked ambition drives a series of outrageous actions that ultimately culminate in a shocking execution on the electric chair.

Warning: spoilers below!

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Timeline & Setting – Female Trouble (1974)

Explore the full timeline and setting of Female Trouble (1974). Follow every major event in chronological order and see how the environment shapes the story, characters, and dramatic tension.

Time period

1960

The story is anchored in early 1960s Baltimore, a period of rigid social norms and a growing appetite for sensational stories. Fashion, nightlife and small-scale crime mirror the era’s push-pull between conformity and flirtation with transgression. This time frame underpins the characters’ choices and the media-driven spectacle surrounding them.

Location

Baltimore, Maryland

The events unfold in Baltimore in 1960, a gritty urban landscape that frames Dawn’s meteoric descent into crime and spectacle. The city’s overlooked neighborhoods and nightlife venues provide the backdrop for her vanities and the Dashers’ manipulative schemes. The setting contrasts glittering glamour with social hardship, highlighting how ambition can be bought and exploited.

🏙 City 🗓️ 1960s 🎭 Satire 💄 Glamour & Crime

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 17:21

Main Characters – Female Trouble (1974)

Meet the key characters of Female Trouble (1974), with detailed profiles, motivations, and roles in the plot. Understand their emotional journeys and what they reveal about the film’s deeper themes.

Dawn Davenport (Divine)

A rebellious high school girl whose vanity and hunger for fame pull her into crime and public attention. Dawn’s life is shaped by manipulation from others who promise glamour, while she struggles with the consequences of her actions and a disfiguring incident. Her pursuit of autonomy through performance ends in a televised, tragic execution that underscores the price of spectacle.

🎭 Anti-hero 💄 Glamour-icon

Taffy Davenport (Mink Stole)

Dawn’s daughter, a teenager torn between her mother’s chaotic world and a desire for a more principled path. Taffy’s search for her father leads to violence, exposing family fractures and the cruelty of Dawn’s environment. She ultimately abandons her past, signaling a potential escape from the cycle of crime.

🧭 Moral compass 👩‍👧 Family tension

Donna Dasher (Mary Vivian Pearce)

Co-owner of the Lipstick Beauty Salon who recruits Dawn into the Dasher artistic scheme. She and Donald use Dawn as a living canvas to prove their theory that crime equals beauty, manipulating both Dawn and Ida for their own gain. Donna embodies a calculated blend of charm and calculation within a glamorized criminal enterprise.

🎭 Manipulator 🧪 Experimenter

Donald Dasher (David Lochary)

Co-owner of the beauty salon and architect of the scheme that franchises Dawn’s crimes as art. He positions himself as a facilitator of Dawn’s rise while weaving a web of deceit around the participants. Donald’s role reveals how artifice can weaponize morality and how those behind the scenes profit from others’ notoriety.

🧠 Schemer 🧬 Experimenter

Ida Nelson (Edith Massey)

Gater’s aunt who resents his marriage and seeks revenge against Dawn for driving him away. Her portrayal as both calculating and vulnerable culminates in a dramatic acid attack and testifying against Dawn, illustrating how personal vendettas intersect with broader schemes of exploitation. Ida’s actions shape the moral landscape of the central conflict.

🪓 Revenge 🗝️ Testimony

Gater Nelson (Michael Potter)

Dawn’s hair stylist husband and neighbor who becomes entangled in the couple’s life of crime and manipulation. His departure to Detroit marks a turning point that deepens Dawn’s sense of abandonment and fuels the Dashers’ retaliatory actions. Gater’s role highlights how personal relationships feed into larger cycles of disruption.

💇 Hair & style 🚶 Exit catalyst

Concetta (Cookie Mueller)

Dawn’s friend who participates in the chaotic criminal activities alongside her. Concetta represents the communal aspect of the criminal lifestyle among Dawn’s circle and reflects how peer groups can normalize harmful behavior. Her presence emphasizes the social dynamic of youth drawn into glamor and risk.

👯‍♀️ Friend-turned-accomplice 🎬 On-screen ally

Earnestine (Elizabeth Coffey)

Dawn’s fellow inmate and lover, who anchors a discreet, intimate relationship within the chaotic world surrounding Dawn. Earnestine’s presence offers a counterpoint to the public spectacle, illustrating personal affection and vulnerability amid spectacle and cruelty. Her bond with Dawn provides emotional depth to the larger satire of power and performance.

💞 Love 🕊️ Private refuge

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 17:21

Major Themes – Female Trouble (1974)

Explore the central themes of Female Trouble (1974), from psychological, social, and emotional dimensions to philosophical messages. Understand what the film is really saying beneath the surface.

💄 Crime & Beauty

Dawn’s pursuit of glamour is entangled with criminal activity, as the Dashers recruit her to prove that crime and beauty are interchangeable. The film literalizes vanity through makeup, fashion, and stage acts that turn illegal acts into performance. It questions whether allure can excuse morally wrong choices or simply weaponize them. The result is a satire where visual appeal fuels violence and notoriety.

🪞 Identity

Dawn undergoes a dramatic public transformation through cosmetics, clothes, and artificial persona. The acid attack shatters her former self and forces a new, manufactured identity crafted by others. The narrative probes how appearance can distort self-perception and reality, leaving the true person submerged beneath a performative image. It suggests identity is as fragile as the images that define it.

♀️ Power & Exploitation

Women in the story navigate a male-dominated system that profits from their fame and bodies. The Dashers weaponize Dawn’s ambition, orchestrating crimes while presenting themselves as guardians of art. Dawn’s ascent and fall reveal how exploitation masquerades as mentorship or collaboration. The arc also follows Taffy’s resistance and the cost of stepping into a world built on others’ control.

🔪 Violence & Punishment

The film escalates from theft and sexual transgression to murder and state punishment, culminating in an electric chair sentence. The trial exposes a corrupt system that grants immunity to influencers of crime while condemning Dawn. Violence is staged as public spectacle, echoing Dawn’s nightclub performances and blurring the line between entertainment and cruelty. The conclusion critiques how society rewards spectacle even as it punishes the vulnerable.

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 17:21

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Female Trouble Summary

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Female Trouble Summary

Female Trouble Timeline

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Female Trouble Timeline

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