VIEW FILM STILLS: Hairspray

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GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 7/12/07)

What a Drag! More Famous Movie Crossdressers

John Waters' 1988 movie Hairspray saw the onetime underground gross-out king ceding his will-to to-offend to his essential sweet-naturedness. Nostalgia will do that to a guy; Waters set the movie in early '60s Baltimore, where and when he grew up, and scored the story of one overweight teen's struggle for TV-dance-show stardom and racial integration to the samizdat-like R&B records he was (and remains) crazy about. Its most outré element, really, was its casting of longtime Waters star, female impersonator Divine, as the overweight teen's mom. The movie was a deft changeup for Waters, who had reflected in his book Shock Value that, early triumphs of filth such as Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living notwithstanding, he didn't see the prospect of making movies about "old men with colostomy bags" as anything to look forward to.

Hairspray was subsequently transposed into a snappy Broadway musical, and that in turn is now a snappy movie musical. (This practice of non-musical movie to Broadway musical to movie-of-the-musical is not as new as 2005's ill-fated The Producers and this production would make it seem — recall that Sweet Charity, both the stage and screen versions, were outgrowths of Fellini's 1957 The Nights of Cabiria.) Unlike the original Hairspray, this one has what you might call an all-star cast. And unlike the leaden screen version of the musical Producers, this Hairspray really is a lot of fun — colorful, sassy, and brisk.

Both the Waters' film and this one introduced sassy plump teens in the role of wannabe dancing queen Tracy Turnblad — Rikki Lake (who appears, way slimmed down, in a cameo in the new version) in 1988 and Nikki Blonsky in 2007. The picture opens with peppy optimistic Tracy sprinting through the streets of her hometown and singing a paean to its seedy charms — Waters himself passes by as a flasher. Tracy is the sole issue of an eccentric couple — Dad Wilbur (Walken) runs a novelty shop, while mom Edna (Travolta) is a shut-in hausfrau. She's protective while Wilbur's encouraging when Tracy announces her intention to audition for The Corny Collins Show (Marsden plays its host), which showcases squeaky-clean all-white dancers on every day except one, wherein African-American kids take over the segregated broadcast. That episode, of course, features the sharpest dancing and the funkiest tunes. Tracy's breaking into the Collins ensemble also sees her forming alliances with black hostess Motormouth Maybelle (Latifah); Tracy's proper pal Penny makes a tentative way into an interracial romance, much to the consternation of her uptight mom. Other forces arrayed against Tracy include Velma von Tussle (Pfeiffer), the TV station manager and mom of Collins starlet Amanda, who everyone assumes has a lock on the upcoming Miss Teenage Hairspray contest. These entanglements and rivalries build to a frothy head indeed.