Musical Cyberspace

Today marks the seventeenth anniversary of the release of the film adaptation of Hairspray. Almost two decades after it hit cinemas, it’s mostly still a great deal of fun. While the movie is by no means perfect, it provides an enjoyable couple of hours in front of the TV. Some viewers compare it unfavourably with the 1988 John Waters original – with some even refusing to watch it – but the original is its own thing: the two are vastly different in tone and I’m happy to let the two versions co-exist peacefully. Between the two films came the 2002 Tony Award-winning Broadway adaptation that inspired the second silver screen adaptation, which was followed nine years later by Hairspray Live!, which Waters felt was the weakest iteration of his original concept.

Set in Baltimore in the early 1960s, Hairspray follows the exploits of Tracy Turnblad, a spirited teen, as she chases her dream of dancing on a local TV show. Along the way, she fights against racial segregation, promoting equality and acceptance in her community. With a screenplay by Leslie Dixon, based on Waters’s original and the Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan-penned book for the musical, and a score by Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman, Hairspray, which was directed and choreographed by Adam Shankman, was hugely popular when it was first released, drawing mostly positive reviews and setting a new record for having the biggest opening weekend for a movie based on a stage musical, which would, in turn, be smashed by Mamma Mia! the following year. In hindsight, there are some moments in the film where the Ultra Clutch holds fast, but others where things are a little more sticky – so let’s explore a few of those in this week’s Saturday List!

Sticky: Losing “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now”

Cutting “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now” from the score was a mistake. This is one of the most popular songs from the Broadway show and showcases Tracy, Penny, and Amber in a dispute with their respective mothers, Edna, Trudy and Velma. “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now.” When asked about the choice, Shankman and Dixon said they struggled to find a way to conceptualise the number without using a three-way split screen, which they wanted to avoid. They also believed the number didn’t significantly move the plot forward. While that may be true, it’s significant in another way – how it establishes the characters and the dynamics between them. Penny and Trudy take the biggest hit with Amber and Velma not far behind. The character stuff is never really reclaimed although there is an attempt to get the dynamic of the relationships reflected in Penny and Trudy’s dialogue and in the reworked “Miss Baltimore Crabs” for Amber and Velma. But neither adjustment is successful in the way that the lost song is.

Holds Fast: Adding Some Great New Songs

What the good Lord lord giveth, the good Lord taketh away, so the Good Book says. The opposite is also true when it comes to movie musicals and even though there were cuts and changes to the score of Hairspray, Shaiman and Wittman gave us a couple of great new songs: “Ladies Choice” and “The New Girl in Town.” Technically, “The New Girl in Town” was already in existence and had been written for the stage show, but never made it to the final version of the smash hit production. Here, it achieves something that the Broadway version never did, letting the audience see what happens when Maybelle takes over The Corny Collins Show and almost referencing the whitewashing of African American music, something that had also been done in Dreamgirls, both on Broadway and the silver screen, with the Dreamgirls having made its mark in cinemas only a year earlier. The way Dreamgirls uses “Cadillac Car” is more authentic, while the sequencing of “The New Girl in Town” is more problematic, perhaps an indication of some of the wider issues at play in Hairspray – more about that later. “Ladies’ Choice” is great fun, cheeky and suggestive in the way “It Takes Two” is, without being so stodgy. It’s true that “Ladies’ Choice” is not a one-for-one replacement for “It Takes Two,” replacing “The Madison” at the Sophomore Hop where Tracy eventually has the breakthrough moment that gets her on The Corny Collins Show. Nonetheless, its great triumph is that Link comes across as much less of a wet. Ironically, it’s also a place where we see cultural appropriation taking a white character places an African American character cannot go on most days within the context of this film’s narrative.

Sticky: Rewriting “Big, Blonde and Beautiful”

What was with the rewrite of “Big, Blonde and Beautiful?” It turns a song that was about identity and character into a song that’s about food. To be fair, the movie version eventually gets to the point as it wraps up, but this is simply not as effective as the original’s use of a verse before jumping into its choruses to give the song a clear framework. Having this little octet ahead of the main song makes a huge difference.

Once upon a time, girl, I was just like you –
Never let my extra large largesse shine through –
Hair was brown and nappy, never had no fun;
I hid under a bushel, which is easier said than done.
Then one day my grandma who was big and stout –
She said, “You gotta love yourself from inside out!”
And just as soon as I learned how to strut my funky stuff
I found out that the world at large can’t get enough!

Holds Fast: Great Casting and Performances

Generally, I thought the film was well cast, with almost everyone delivering great performances. Nikki Blonsky hits exactly the right notes as Tracy and the risk of casting John Travolta paid off well for general audiences – I think he is great as Edna, despite being directed in a way that largely stripped the role of its camp joy. Is Travolta as good as Divine? No, of course not, but he works within the context of the film. I particularly enjoy the progression of Blonsky and Travolta’s scenes as their relationship develops throughout the film. Christopher Walken is phenomenal as Wilbur, in a flawless performance, as is Queen Latifah, who delivers her two-and-a-half numbers with great flair and gusto. Zac Efron, as Link, is great and gives a far better performance than his after his bland turn in High School Musical – it’s great to see what he can do with some good material. Elijah Snow is also fantastic as Seaweed and Taylor Parks is simply a joy to behold as Little Inez. As mentioned above, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Velma and Brittany Snow’s Amber suffered from the rewrites, but they are both solid throughout.

Sticky: Casting Amanda Bynes as Penny

Amanda Bynes was big stuff on the teen pop culture scene when Hairspray was released. She’d had a great run on the sitcom What I Like About You and the momentum of She’s the Man pushed her even further into a spotlight tragically destined to break her spirit a few years later, when she began to struggle with her mental health and substance abuse. Her presence in the cast of Hairspray was undoubtedly meant to be a win-win: for Bynes, it would be another step towards mainstream stardom; for the movie, Bynes’s fame would be a drawcard. In the end, Bynes’s Penny is still the weak link in the cast for me. Her transformation from nervous geek to checkerboard chick doesn’t have enough of an arc. Some of this is due to Bynes’s performance, but the fact that she had less material to make her character work successfully than she could or should have had plays a part in this too.

Holds Fast: Cameos and Callbacks

One of the great joys of the film is the range of cameos and callbacks that appear throughout it. First up is Hairspray‘s creator, with Waters being given the perfect spot in terms of his own brand of creativity and humour as who appears as ‘the flasher who lives next door’ in “Good Morning Baltimore.” Ricki Lake, the first-ever Tracy appears as a William Morris Talent Agent and also joins Broadway’s first Tracy, Marissa Jaret Winokur, and Blonsky in a credits version of “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now,” which also pops in a bit of Harvey Fierstein for good measure. Shaiman and Wittman, who wrote the score, also appear as William Morris Talent Agents, with director Shankman rounding out that group of talent scouts. Diving deep, if you’ve got sharp ears, you can hear Shaiman and Shankman dueting on the song Prudy plays for Penny when she ties her up for hiding Tracy in their fallout shelter, “”Tied Up in the Knots of Sin.” Three Broadway Seaweeds – Corey Reynolds, Arthur Adams and Chester Gregory – also pop up in singing cameos, performing the background numbers “Trouble on the Line,” “Boink-Boink” and “Breakout” respectively. There are also some references to classic movie musicals, like the opening zoom of the film from the skies to ground-level Baltimore, a clear nod to Robert Wise’s openings of West Side Story and The Sound of Music. There’s a second reference to The Sound of Music in “You Can’t Stop the Beat” when Penny shows up in a dress made up of her bedroom curtains, which appear in the “Without Love” sequence. “Without Love” itself has a throwback to The Broadway Melody of 1938, with Link singing to Tracy like Judy Garland did to Clark Gable in “You Made Me Love You.” Shankman has also been clear in interviews that he referenced Funny Girl twice, once when Tracy’s new hairstyle is revealed in “Welcome to the ’60s” and again as she rides on the garbage in “Good Morning Baltimore.” Have fun pointing those out to your friends in your next watch!

Sticky: A Lack of Directorial Vision and Camp

Two major criticisms of the movie from when it was released were the “traffic officer” style of direction and the dialling down of the camp nature of the material, especially in comparison with the Waters original and the Broadway show. While Shankman’s work as a director is never less than serviceable, it doesn’t always make the film pop as it should. It often has life, but not vibrancy – which is slicing things pretty fine. Either way, it doesn’t get in the way of things too much and some moments work incredibly well – just take the build to “The Nicest Kids in Town” from Tracy’s classroom and behind the scenes at the television studio until The Corny Collins Show goes live as an example. Shankman also delivers on the choreography front and everything is filmed pretty stylishly thanks to Bojan Bazelli’s cinematography. While there’s less director-driven character work than there could be, this is perhaps not as destructive as the way that the camp tone of the material is dialled way down. Dixon’s work on the screenplay in this regard is a clear sign that this was part of the creative vision for the whole film, but it sits at odds with many songs in the score and even the idea of playing Edna in drag.

Holds Fast: The Balance of Pastiche and Heart

Shankman’s work on Hairspray succeeds in one big way Susan Stroman’s work on The Producers, released two years earlier, failed miserably. Look at a number like “Timeless to Me.” One of my favourite parts of the movie, this number is the kind of stylistic throwback that the film remake of The Producers was going for and just didn’t achieve again and again and again. The fact that Shankman and his team also remembered to give Hairspray a heart, something that was lacking in The Producers, also elevated things. Side note: Does The Producers need a heart? I don’t know – maybe not – but without one, it bores one to tears. When you put the two side by side, I don’t think The Producers holds a candle to Hairspray. I found The Producers relatively entertaining the first time around, all of its retread jokes and gags don’t land as well on repeat viewings. While Hairspray also deals with pastiche in spades, it has style and character, and is characterful – three things that I think prevent The Producers from being memorable on celluloid – at least, that’s the way it is for me.

Sticky: The White Saviour

The march for integration is a key sequence in Hairspray and the use of “I Know Where I’ve Been” to underscore the action is perhaps the most memorable part of the film. When the police arrive, Tracy runs away from something that was her suggestion in the first place. Is this problematic? Is it out of character? In the stage show, Tracy is arrested along with everyone else. What happens to a white saviour narrative when the white saviour disappears when things get hot? For those unfamiliar with the term, the white saviour trope occurs when a story is built around a white character who improves the lives of circumstances of people of colour in difficult situations. That character, often out of place in their own community until they lead minorities to glory, also undergoes personal growth during the process. Sound familiar? Hairspray actually walks a pretty fine line when it comes to its white saviourism, but it could have done better. Those who’ve followed this site for a long time will know how big a fan I am of the concept of “the faux musical,” a term that Michael John LaChiusa coined in Opera News to describe contemporary musicals that are formulaic and often based on existing intellectual properties in pop culture without transcending the source material. He names Hairspray as an example of such a musical and it took me a lot of time to crack his citation of this show as an example, his others all having made sense to me instantly. I think this is where Hairspray fits the faux musical bill in its adaptation of the original Waters film. It misses a beat in not giving the African American characters greater ownership of their narrative. In the West End revival of Hairspray, there was finally a nod to the changing of the times when a lyric in “You Can’t Stop the Beat” was changed from ‘tomorrow is a brand new day and it don’t know white from black’ to ‘it sees both white and black.’ Imagine what could have been had that focus been in place when Hairspray was first adapted for the stage!

I wasn’t convinced by the changes in the narrative in the last third of the film, after the march. I think the thread of the love story between Link and Tracy was a little out of focus and the right balance between the love story and the civil rights story (which I found incredibly moving) wasn’t quite achieved.

Holds Fast: The Score overall

The best thing about Hairspray has always been its score, which stands out for its infectious energy and memorable tunes. The songs are incredibly catchy, making them instantly memorable and fun to sing along to – hence the release of sing-along prints to movie theatres two weeks after the film’s release. The arrangements are meticulously crafted, enhancing the energetic atmosphere of the musical. The vocals are also consistently engaging, delivered with enthusiasm and character in a way that draws in audiences. The score cleverly plays with old pop styles, creating a nostalgic yet fresh sound that delights listeners. This throwback to classic pop is both fun and innovative, adding a unique flavor to the musical. Generally speaking, the storytelling through music in Hairspray is exceptional. Songs like “I Can Hear the Bells” and “Run and Tell That!” seamlessly blend narrative and melody, advancing the plot while entertaining the audience. Listening to the soundtrack of the film offers a great experience every time, a testament to the standout feature of this show.

Final Thoughts

The film adaptation of Hairspray continues to resonate seventeen years after its release, blending charm, music and social commentary into a vibrant and joyful experience. While it’s true that some aspects of the film could be seen as sticky, particularly in the changes made to beloved songs and certain narrative choices, the essence of Hairspray holds fast. Its message of acceptance, equality and self-love remains powerful and relevant. The score’s energy, the cast’s dedication, and the story’s heart ensure that Hairspray will continue to connect with audiences as the years go by. In a constantly evolving world, the themes of Hairspray remind us of the importance of embracing change, celebrating diversity and fighting for what is right. So, whether you’re a fan of the original John Waters film, the Broadway musical, or this star-studded adaptation, there’s something in Hairspray for everyone to enjoy. As Tracy Turnblad enthusiastically declares, “You can’t stop the beat!” And indeed, the beat goes on, encouraging us all to dance through life with open hearts and minds.