But not everyone is enamored with an event that seemingly celebrates a white culture in a neighborhood that was once an enclave for white, blue-collar Baltimoreans. Even Baltimore’s beloved “Pope of Trash” John Waters has dismissed the Hon culture that he helped to popularize, telling The Baltimore Sun in 2008 that “it’s used up” and “condescending now.”
At one time, Waters incorporated the Hon image in some of his movies, most notably in his 1988 film Hairspray. The original movie, which later became a musical and then a film again, featured teens and women of the early ’60s wearing exaggerated beehive and bouffant hairstyles. In the movie, the late Baltimore star Divine played the larger-than-life character Edna Turnblad, who delivered the line, “Fetch me my diet pills, would you, hon?”
Over the years, “hon,” a shortened version of the endearment “honey,” has secured a place in Baltimore’s lexicon.
“You used ‘hon’ because you didn’t know everyone’s name,” Hockstein says.
With the right accent, it’s pure Bawlmerese, a dialect that originated among the city’s white, blue-collar residents. Whatever its pronunciation, Waters told The Sun that he’s done with the word and the Hon image: “I used to say, ‘Come to Baltimore and you would see people with those hairdos.’ You no longer see that. They’re dead or in nursing homes.” The years haven’t softened his stance. When asked recently about the Hons, he said, through an assistant, that he feels like he’s already shared his opinion about the Hon phenomenon and has nothing fresh to add.
The Hons are also in a bit of a tussle with Waters. “He thinks we’re appropriating his characters. We think he’s appropriating our characters,” Hockstein says. “We go back and forth. It has never been settled.”
David Puglia, who wrote Tradition, Urban Identity, and the Baltimore “Hon”: The Folk in the City (Lexington Books, 2018), sees Hon folklore as a way…
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