HAIRSPRAY
US, 1982, 96 minutes, Colour.
Rikki Lake, Sonny Bono, Divine, Deborah Harry, Jerry Stiller, Mink Stole, Pia Zadora.
Directed by John Waters.
Hairspray is a very cheerful film by John Waters, a director of small-budget films in bad taste (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble - often with Divine). Divine appears in this film (his last) as the mother of the heroine as well as the bigoted head of the Baltimore television station.
However, this is Baltimore 1962: teenagers, clothes and hairstyles, television dance shows and dancing. Ricky Lake is a jovial (O.S.) heroine who enthuses friends and family alike about dancing. Underlying the breezy surface are themes of fashion and fads, but, more particularly, U.S. racial issues and how segregation was practised in those days. There is a strong cast of unknown and guest stars, including Sonny Bono, Debbie Harry and Pia Zadora. It's nothing startling, but is a really cheerful film.
It also launched Ricky Lake on her talk-show career.
1. An enjoyably cheerful musical? Memories of the '60s? Nostalgia? The echoes of Grease? The work or John Waters – in contrast with his bad taste films (though some touches here!)
2. 1960s, Baltimore, the atmosphere of the city, the homes, white homes, black homes? Shops? Streets? Television, the TV studios?
3. The authenticity of the locations: homes, park, the entertainment park, television station? Decor, costumes and mood? The strength of the cast?
4. The dancing throughout the film - lively choreography, echoes of the time? The musical score and the collection of songs of the period?
5. The Corny Collins Show: television, black and white, the teenage audience, the dancing, the performers in the studio, the comment by Corny Collins, the assistant with the 'applause' signing the telegrams, the quest for the queen of the dance? The serious elements of white dancing and the one night for black audiences? Segregation - and the changes of 1962-63? The bigoted boss, the conflicts, the pressure on Corny Collins? The uproar in live shows? The handling of the situation - and the happy ending?
6. Social themes within the cheerful mood: family, school, fashions, glamour, TV idols, being fat, race issues, wealth, power?
7. Tracy: in herself, at home, watching the television? Her size? The audition, her explanation of herself? Success, popular? Link becoming her boyfriend? Her leading the dance, the telegrams, Link? The fashion shop and going there with her mother - the manager and his using her in the ads? The humorous ads for O.S. women? Maybelle and her visit, leading the dance? In her own area? Her son? Amber and her jealousy? The visit to the beatniks? The entertainment park, the demonstration, Tracy going to jail? The different fashion and her ironing her hair? Her being released? Winning? Ricky Lake as a lively and likable heroine?
8. Tracy's parents? Divine and obeseness, the fussing mother, so 50s? The satire on the mother? Becoming her daughter's agent? Relationship with her husband, his work? Admiring Tracy? The husband and his support of his daughter?
9. The pressure Amber and her glamour, spoilt, nasty, ridiculing Tracy in front of her parents, wanting to be in the limelight, her mother's insistence on practice, the parents and the amusement park, their wheeler-dealings, their resentment about Amber's rejection, the setting up of the bomb, the explosion and their arrest?
10. Penny as Tracy's best friend, nice? her interfering mother, the mother going into the black neighbourhood and the satire on white fear? Getting the psychiatrist to treat Penny? Penny at Maybelle's, falling in love with her son, imprisoned and going off with him (disguised as nuns)?
11. Link as the typical clean-cut American hero? With Amber, dancing? Nice? Supporting Tracy? his injury? Supporting her in the race issues? The range of the dances, the jokes, the young dancers, the black dancers?
12. Tracy and co encountering the beatniks, the beatnik philosophy, their way of life, philosophy? And Tracy ironing her hair in imitation?
13. The culmination with Tracy in prison, released, queen of the dance? Right overcoming? An atmosphere of joy and innocence and change? Cheerful?
