The Ottery
“If an otter can’t have fun doing something, it just simply won’t do it.”

Shame on Hairspray

January 12th, 2008

There was a lot of flack over the casting of John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in the recent remake of Hairspray (well, “remake” in the sense that it’s the film version of a stage musical based on a 1988 movie) because the role has traditionally gone to a gay man, but I don’t understand why there hasn’t been any sort of large-scale complaint about the treatment of race issues in the movie. The 2007 Hairspray is, at best, naively ignorant and, at worst, racist—and, in all cases, something to be ashamed of.

(Note: I’ve never seen the 1988 movie or the stage musical, so my comments here are entirely based on the 2007 movie.)

Did you even know that Hairspray dealt with race? Chances are, you didn’t, because Queen Latifah is the only one, of the many African American actors in the film, to receive top billing. In a movie that, half an hour in, pompously proclaims to be about integration, that’s a problem. The movie subsequently forgets its announced subject matter to focus on John Travolta in a fatsuit, Michelle Pfeiffer as a rather boring villain, and, of course, Zac Efron singing and dancing as a teen heartthrob. In other words, though set in 1962, the movie is a pretty realistic portrayal of 2007—including our willed ignorance of the continuing reality of racism.

Hairspray centers around the character of Tracy Turnblad, a plump, white Baltimore teen who wants nothing more than to sing and dance on The Corny Collins Show (think The Mickey Mouse Club, only with more early rock music). When she meets that goal, she nobly decides that her next step is to “make every day Negro Day”—because, you see, the daily Corny Collins Show devotes one day of every week to music popular with African American teens. Tracy actually makes her first black friends when she is sent to detention—because where else would young black people be? (The movie could have made this acceptable by somehow indicating that the African American students are unfairly represented in detention because of the racism of white administrators, but, no—it seems they’re just the only people in detention because that’s where fun-lovin’ black people belong.)

After a long, long time and no content at all related to race relations, for some reason there’s suddenly a protest march to integrate The Corny Collins Show—which would indeed be a good goal, if the movie or its characters actually cared about it. Mostly, the protest march just gives Queen Latifah to sing a solo number. And then, when they reach the television station, Tracy, who has been marching along with the African American characters, accidentally taps a policeman on the back of the head with her protest sign. He promptly tries to arrest her for assaulting a police officer, and she RUNS AWAY. Hello? Isn’t getting arrested the whole point of a protest march?

It would be one thing if Tracy had to face the consequences of her cowardice, but the movie doesn’t even recognize her actions as cowardice. Nope, it’s necessary self-preservation so that she can compete in the Miss Teenage Hairspray pageant. Meanwhile, all the black protestors get arrested. True, Tracy’s father does bail them all out (if that’s not white noblesse oblige, then what is?).

The most egregious moment in the film is when Tracy, still on the lam from the law, shows up at Motormouth Maybelle’s (Queen Latifah’s) house to hide, and Maybelle, all smiles, says, “Why wouldn’t we help her out, after all she’s done for us?” ALL SHE’S DONE FOR YOU? Excuse me? Thank you, white screenwriters. Whoever wrote that line, I hope you never get a raise and have to keep picketing for the rest of your life. Just you. Even if you’re John Waters.

And those are just the film’s moral problems. I haven’t even started in on its aesthetic failures, from the director’s apparent lack of knowledge of how to film a dance number, to John Travolta’s fat-costume, which renders his face immobile.

To return to the main issue, though, I think one of the film’s biggest problems is that it treats all forms of prejudice as equal. “Fat, black, gay—we ought to accept and celebrate all ‘different’ people!” proclaims the film cheerily. And I’m not here to say feeling prejudice against overweight people is any less bad than feeling prejudice against African Americans. As feelings, all prejudices may indeed be created equal—but in historical reality, there are significant differences between oppression of African Americans and oppression of fat people. I don’t recall reading about lynchings of overweight people anywhere in my American history textbook. To somehow equate the experience of the overweight and the experience of African Americans is offensive. And stupid.

So, in conclusion, I hereby dub Hairspray the second-worst film of 2007, after 300. (Of course, that’s just among the films I’ve seen, and I have no intention of seeing Norbit or Alvin and the Chipmunks.) No musical has ever made me this grumpy. If it wins any Golden Globes tomorrow, I’m expatriating. Oh, wait–the Golden Globes are given out by the Hollywood Foreign Press, so that won’t help. Rats.

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