#26 — Hairspray (John Waters, 1988)
The first time I saw Hairspray, it was in black-and-white. I was at the house of a college friend, watching the movie on his big console TV with suspect technical dependability. The color wasn’t working until the very end, when he smacked the set out of frustration and the reds, blues and yellows clicked into place as if Dorothy had just crossed over to Oz. My friend’s immediate instinct was to watch the film again, right that moment. I doubt the desire for an instant repeat viewing came up often with something like Pink Flamingos, except maybe for those desperately trying to prove that they had lying eyes. Hairspray is a giddy outlier in John Waters’ filmography, though. It’s so filled with bright joy that it practically beckons: “Some spend some more time in this vivid, wondrous world that’s been created.”

Set in the early nineteen-sixties, Hairspray focuses on Tracy Turnblad, played by Ricki Lake in a smashing performance. She’s a Baltimore teenager who’s absolutely addicted to The Corny Collins Show, the dance party program that plays on local television after school. She switches from dancing along in her living room to giving it the big strong M, erasing it and going back to The Madison in front of the cameras. Having overcome her peers’ prejudice about her weight, mostly anyway, Tracy goes on to use her platform as one of the biggest stars of the show to fight the injustice of racial inequity in the greater community. Without ever getting preachy or judgmental, a couple of human foibles that seem completely absent from Waters’ uniquely effusive genes, the director manages to tackle big, meaningful issues, landing his conclusions with the convincing thump of overlooked common sense.

Mostly, though, the film is pure exuberance, channeling the freedom of revolutionary youth into a bold, kitschy, endlessly warm comedy. Waters incorporated all sorts of music he remembered from his younger years and his cheery affection for every song, every dance move, every willfully goofy corner of his movie is readily apparent. Practically any other director that Waters could have handed his script to would have let aggressive satire seep in through the film’s sprocket holes, but Waters, perhaps above all else, is about respecting those things that amuse and fascinate him. There are a lot of great filmmakers who are driven by a need to tell stories, but Waters seems motivated more by his desire to share his favorite things, like a friend rushing up to show off the treasures secured from a long afternoon bopping from one thrift store to another.

Everything in film works marvelously, even the stunt casting. Sonny Bono, Debbie Harry, Pia Zadora and Ric Ocasek aren’t necessarily good in their roles, but they are perfect in them (with Ocasek meriting special praise for his Looney Tunes reaction to the word “reefer”). Beyond the playfulness of the call sheet, the film also contains a winning performance by Waters’ longtime friend and collaborator, Divine. In his final outing with Waters–Divine died of respiratory failure less than a month after the film’s premiere–Divine plays Tracy’s mother, initially angered by her daughter’s dreams of upward mobility through hair-hopper notoriety. Eventually she finds her way out of her own drab existence, trapped below a mountain of clothes that need ironing, and Divine makes her sudden openness to a more colorful, happier world effortlessly magnetic. Like many of the elements of the film, the performance transcends any initial dismissals of gimmickry to become something wise, funny and deeply felt. It’s just another of the many reasons that Hairspray is impossible to resist.