The Travolta/Cage Project #84 Hairspray (2007)
The Travolta/Cage Project is an ambitious, years-long multi-media exploration of the fascinating, overlapping legacies of Face/Off stars John Travolta and Nicolas Cage with two components: this online column exploring the actor’s complete filmographies in chronological order and the Travolta/Cage podcast, where Clint Worthington, myself and a series of fascinating guests discuss the movies I write about here.
Read previous entries in the column here, listen to the podcast here, pledge to the Travolta/Cage Patreon at this blessed web address and finally follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/travoltacage
I was twelve years old when I saw my first John Waters movie in a theater. But before you give my parents way too much credit for being hip and with it, bear in mind that I was born in 1976, so my introduction to the provocateur behind Pink Flamingos and Polyester was 1988’s Hairspray.
Hairspray was a movie fit for the whole family, a PG-rated romp that found the beloved Baltimore bad boy taking an unmistakable step towards mainstream acceptance without compromising his aesthetic or watering down his sensibility.
Even before Hairspray was turned into a hit Broadway musical and then a star-studded 2007 feature film it felt unmistakably like a musical. I know that I left that giddy, glorious initial screening of Hairspray with a song in my heart (specifically Rachel Sweet’s righteously retro title tune) and a spring in my step.
Like the best musicals, Water’s original Hairspray didn’t just make me happy; it filled my heart with joy. I had the same reaction when I watched the 2007 big budget feature film adaptation of the musical for the first time and also every subsequent time.
The 2007 Hairspray is primo cinematic comfort food. It’s the kind of eminently re-watchable delight that you find on basic cable and feel the need to watch to the end no matter how many times you’ve seen it.
Hairspray casts charming newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad, an ebullient teenager with a towering beehive who lives for The Corny Collins Show, a local dance program hosted by the titular grinning goofball (James Marsden).
Tracy is particularly enamored of “Negro Day”, when the show is given over to R&B disc jockey Mothermouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah, reuniting with director Adam Shankman after the monstrosity that was 2005’s Bringing Down the House) and hip black teenagers.
Tracy wishes every day was Negro Day but the station’s ice queen station manager Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer) isn’t about to let progress or integration stand in the way of making her pretty, awful daughter Amber (Brittany Snow) a star by any means necessary.
In detention one day Tracy discovers an exhilarating new world of integration and acceptance, where black and white teenagers groove to an infectious new rhythm the adults just don’t understand.
John Travolta is cast boldly against type as Tracy’s mother Edna, an overweight, agoraphobic housewife who hides from a scary and uncertain world in the comfort of her own home before her adoring daughter inspires her to embrace change in all of its challenges, to step boldly into a new world where it’s not only okay to be different: it’s preferable.
Christopher Walken is similarly cast against type as Wilbur Turnblad, an affable geek who lives for his family and a business he considers the “Taj Mahal” of joke shops.
Wilbur is so gloriously, hilariously oblivious to everything else that when the heartless and ferociously ambitious Velma tries to seduce Wilbur at his place of business with increasingly blunt come-ons he has absolutely no idea what’s going on.
Wilbur responds to the sex bomb’s desperate sexual advances by trotting out an endless series of juvenile gag gifts until the frustrated vixen finally just gives up.
Hairspray marked Pfeiffer’s triumphant return to the big screen after a five year absence. It’s a wonderful performance that serves as a reminder that Pfeiffer isn’t just ridiculously, almost impossibly good-looking and a terrific actress but an underrated comic actress as well.
Pfeiffer’s performance here is absolutely fearless. The Grease 2 star leans into the fang-bearing villainy of the role. Like pretty much everyone in the cast, she is clearly having a goddamn ball singing and dancing and bringing John Waters’ Baltimore back to the big screen in all its seedy, vulgar glory.
Walken has a well-earned reputation as one of our creepiest and most intense, not to mention beloved character actors. Hairspray ingeniously taps into a side of the actor and icon seen far too infrequently, a sweet, paternal quality he also got to show off in his Oscar-nominated performance in 2002’s Catch Me If You Can.
Walken has wonderful chemistry with Blonsky as well as Travolta. Deep into the film there is a dance sequence between Tracy’s cornball parents and we are reminded that the actors cast as a deeply embarrassing mom and dad are played by legendary song and dance men who rank among our greatest movie stars.
Hairspray makes a running joke out of Edna’s eternal hunger for food but there’s nothing at all mean-spirited about this particular vein of humor. After all, who doesn’t love to eat?
The musical Hairspray pits the forces of change, openness, youth and acceptance, as exemplified by Tracy and her interracial coalition of friends and allies, against an adult world ferociously committed to preserving a corrupt status quo.
Since this is a film based on a film by John Waters there’s never any question where the filmmaker’s allegiance lies or whether good will triumph over evil.
Though Waters did not write or direct this version of Hairspray its sweetness, idealism and optimism are most assuredly his own. Despite his standing as a preeminent Godfather of filth and debauchery, Waters is clearly a lovely human being and wonderful man whose delightful personality informs every inspired act of transgression and provocation.
Like pretty much everything associated with Waters, Hairspray is an uninhibited celebration of underdogs, vulgarity, acceptance and the bad taste that makes life worth living.
The 2007 Hairspray is a very good movie full of catchy songs, inspired choreography from Shankman, who began his career as a dancer and choreographer before making the leap to directing, and universally fine performances from a cast filled with ringers.
But more than anything, Hairspray is a profoundly nice movie, blessed with a genuine sense of innocence, sweetness and optimism that can be traced very directly back to Waters.
It’s a terrific hangout movie full of characters you can’t help but adore. This is particularly striking given that it was released the same year as Wild Hogs, a movie that seems to hate itself, its characters, women, homosexuals and the world equally.
Commercially speaking, Travolta had a very good 2007 but only one of his hits has endured. Despite grossing nearly a quarter billion at the box-office, I imagine everyone involved with Wild Hogs would like to pretend it didn’t exist, Travolta most of all.
Hairspray will stand the test of time. Wild Hogs, on the other hand, has already been mercifully forgotten.
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Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here