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Hairspray (1987): John Waters’ Frictionless Fantasy

Hairspray (1987): John Waters’ Frictionless Fantasy

Last updated on: February 3, 2025 at 12:28 pm by Chase Padusniak

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Hairspray (1987): John Waters’ Frictionless Fantasy 2025-02-03T12:28:50-04:00 Chase Padusniak

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John Waters at home
Source: The Library of Congress
Public Domain

Hairspray: Simply Divine

What do Ric Ocasek, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, and Ricki Lake have in common? Why, they’re all in John Waters’ Hairspray (1987), of course (I tried looking for something a bit cleverer—scavenging through astrological signs and looking over how death and birth months might be loosely tied together—but to no avail).

Music, music, music, and talk TV—that about sums up this Baltimore-centered take on early-60s racial integration. Like me, many people might have seen the aughts-era remake first, which lives on in my scattered memory. For me, little more remains than smudged images of John Travolta in drag from that version. The original, however, is fresh, clear. And I suspect it might all suggest a bit more than meets the eye.

A small group of teens led by rotund teenybopper Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) turns the city upside down. Using her unexpectedly deft dance moves to integrate a local teen rock-and-dance program and find true love, Tracy conquers a city ruled by bigotry. Love wins over hate, and many a joke is made at the expense of Baltimore’s huge-haired, smiley segregationist model citizenry, as when Tracy’s rivals’ parents quote George Wallace in front of their whites-only amusement park.

The plot washes over the viewer. It’s a lot of fun. But I’m new to Waters’ films, so please humor me if I get something off my chest.

There’s a frictionlessness to Hairspray (maybe to all his movies?) that I found both pleasurable and perplexing. Not only was there never any doubt how the narrative would play out—there was hardly a narrative to speak of. A large teen girl immediately overcomes the judgment, prejudice, and suspicion of her peers by a sheer display of dancing skill. Her rival’s boyfriend immediately falls in love with her. The host of the TV show she appears on backs her on integration. As soon as she’s on TV, a purveyor of larger ladies ‘wear gets in touch and asks her to model. What’s more, we already know segregation will end.

Here, we have entered a realm beyond fantasy.

Why Watch?

I’d wager the pleasure I experienced stems from the ability to shut down my brain after a long week, time to experience the triumph of righteousness, of the little guy (or the big girl) without worry or fear. At the same time, it left me wondering why I was watching: for the jokes? For the dancing? For the music?

“Yes” to all three. But that isn’t really the whole story either. I can’t help but feel that the film’s frictionlessness ties into Waters’ fascination with the beautiful surfaces of the 1960s, those big bouffants and greased pompadours that hide the social rot and bigotry displayed by the film’s “bad” characters. In this sense, the movie must remain frictionless because its world is incapable of recognizing and adjudicating its own contradictions. Cheesing officials greet protests with grunts, smiles, and police brutality. Segregation takes the form of monthly “Negro Nights” (so generous!). Racist moms screech at the sight of Black people—they do nothing more.

In other words, the comic-book logic of Hairspray is an attempt to be honest about its source material, about the way the American mainstream understands and comports itself. Maybe that isn’t true today. Indeed, maybe it wasn’t true then, not everywhere (enter George Wallace once again—or worse). But, at least for a portion of the American middle class, such frictionlessness is undeniably its calling card.

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