Dangerous Waters

This week I had the pleasure of finally watching the original Hairspray. I, like everyone else I know, saw the newest film version a few years ago when it came out. Having seen the remake first, I was expecting the original to be just as energetic and overly peppy. I was expecting crowds of teens to burst out into song and dance and skip merrily towards the camera. Luckily, John Waters has a different style. That is not to say that he doesn't enjoy theatrical performances, he certainly does. But what makes him unique is his use of adult themes in seemingly innocent stories. The original was full of racial issues and sexual themes.

Racial equality, or the lack of it, was at the forefront of the film. African Americans were not allowed to dance on the regular Corny Collins Show, and segregation was present practically everywhere. Tracy Turnblad, the pleasantly plump teen with a big personality, secures a dancing role on the show and rallies for racial integration. The most interesting thing about the story of a racially divided television dancing show is that it was based on reality. The Corny Collins Show is based on The Buddy Deane Show, which had racial segregation and integration issues in the early 1960s. In 1963, the Buddy Deane Show was overrun with a group of teens, both black and white, who just wanted the chance to dance together. It was a prime example of the changing attitudes in the 60s, especially among the youth. According to Polar Levine in his article "Hairspray's Revolting History," America longed for order and predictability in the 50s after the chaos of WWII and the Great Depression. This "Pleasantville" era of naive attitudes was crushed in 1963 with the Kennedy assassination. People were shaken up, and unsure of what was to come. The newest teen generation started listening to The Beatles and Bob Dylan, expanding their minds with new dreams of a harmonious world. The traditions of the past, however, were hard to overcome.

The 1988 Hairspray was also full of sexual themes. This is common in Waters films, but this one was particularly tame compared to his other films. In fact, most receive an NC-17 rating. Hairspray was rated PG. This is probably because it is not outwardly explicit in sexuality, but rather it relies on implications about what the characters are doing behind closed doors. The only time we see anything visually sexual is the make-out scene in the alley. Tracy's best friend, Penny Pingleton, begins an interracial relationship with Seaweed and is declared a checkerboard girl. This shocks many in the film, as it was not common to have interracial relationships in the 60s, nor was it considered socially acceptable by many. Penny's mother serves as a humorous look at how ridiculously paranoid most adults were in the changing era of the 60s. John Waters even makes a cameo as a psychotherapist who attempts to break Penny of her radical ways. This, as absurd as it may seem, was used to illustrate what people would actually resort to when trying to break someone of a bad influence.

John Waters himself in an interesting filmmaker who is just as outrageous and entertaining as any of his characters. He grew up in Baltimore, the setting of each and every one of his movies. Not like other children, Waters had a curiously demented view on things. In the Varner article, Waters recalls watching The Wizard of Oz and rooting for the Wicked Witch. Waters even made money by staging puppet shows for neighborhood children. His natural personality came out in his puppet shows, resulting in "lurid scenarios" which frightened the children. Eventually, parents stopped bringing their children to watch. These childhood stories perfectly capture Waters' spirited personality. As an adult, he would go on to join marches for social justice and protest against the war in Vietnam. He would then transfer this energy to making films that displayed his personal opinions in an accessible way.

Hairspray was released in 1988, with moderate success at the box office. After being released to VHS it became a cult classic and received pleasing reviews. This would eventually lead to the Broadway musical adaptation and the 2007 film based on this musical. All versions, but especially Waters' original, lend a colorfully playful and humorous element to the serious issues dealt with. This technique of looking at everything in a light of parody is what makes John Waters' films so recognizable. As Waters says in an interview with Dennis Cooper, "...if you can't change something, you make fun of it and accept it. That's maturity." Waters adds to this idea in another interview with Greg Varner; "Use wit as terrorism. Humiliate your enemies through humor and make them look silly." I completely agree. This seems like a very smart way to keep yourself sane. You have to be able to take a step back and look at everything from the outside. Waters seems to have perfected this technique.

New Terminology:

Coprophagous- the eating of feces or dung

Zaftig- having a full, rounded figure

Dadaism- an early 20th century international movement in art, literature, music, and film, repudiating and mocking artistic conventions and emphasizing the illogical and absurd

This last term seems to have been made for Waters.