Hairspray

I saw it when it first came out, I've seen it several times since, and my last viewing was just a few weeks ago. It never seems flat or old.

It takes a look at an issue that doesn't necessarily seem to be a goldmine of laughs (racial difficulties in the early '60s) and turns it into just that without robbing it of any dignity or sense of importance. John Waters seems to have pulled out all the stops to insure this outcome, and it really paid off.

The "pleasingly plump" pre-talk show Ricki Lake turns in a great performance in a role that's an inspiration to "chunky" girls everywhere.

As always, Waters picks cameo and supporting actors that are dead-on perfect. His own turn as a psychologist is an absolute scream! Brimming with hysterical lines and set-ups, this is a comedy you need to see, if you haven't already.

Hairspray both this version and the new 2007 one are a pair of great satirical films about teenage mores in the early Sixties of the Civil Rights Era. Sometimes our heroes and heroines for civil rights and human decency can be found where you least expect.

Such a person is Tracy Turnblad played by later television host Rikki Lake who's a full figured gal in every sense of the word. Her biggest desire growing up in Baltimore of the Early Sixties is to get on the local teen hop show hosted by Corny Collins. The regulars who dance there have a celebrity status, but something a fat girl dare not hope to dream.

Tracy doesn't hope, she lives the dream and actually gets picked to dance and be a regular to the distress of plastic teen princess Colleen Fitzpatrick. But it's a cause for celebration for Tracy's parents played by Divine and Jerry Stiller and her best friend Leslie Ann Powers.

All this is against the background of the civil rights era and Baltimore had its problems also. The Corny Collins show is segregated with a prescribed Negro Day once a month. That seems as bogus to Tracy as baseball being segregated not too long ago and she joins the fight to integrate the show. She's even convinced her teen dream new boyfriend Michael St. Gerard to join in as well.

A subplot is Powers finding love herself in the person of Clayton Prince who is black and that's upsetting to a lot of people, not the least is Powers's mother. It would be within that same decade that the Supreme Court did away with miscegenation laws, so these kids are running some real risks.

Hairspray is a very funny film with a very serious message about live and live. In fact that's the main problem with the world today right now, certain people feeling they've got the right through religion or secular philosophy or plain out and out wealth who just feel they've the right to dictate the lives the rest of us are supposed to lead in conforming to how they see the world.

In the remake of Hairspray, Queen Latifah who plays Ruth Brown's role of Motormouth Mabel says to the characters playing the Powers and Prince roles that as a racially mixed couple that those young people should be prepared for a whole lot of stupid in the world to deal with. One cast member of this version of Hairspray had occasion to deal with a whole lot of stupid back in 1994.

In the cast he's listed as Keith Douglas, lead singer of the Lafayettes DooWop group, but he was Keith Douglas Pruitt, a talented musician, actor, and composer. He and his partner were attacked by a trio of suburban rednecks who were dismayed at seeing two members of the same sex holding hands on Waverly Place. Keith sustained a fractured skull and a hearing loss for a while looked to permanently impair his career in music.

It was in my working days with New York State Crime Victims Board that I met Keith Pruitt. I did the claims for both he and his partner, giving them what my agency could provide for both of them. He did go back to work eventually to the applause of his friends and admirers of his work.

Keith Pruitt died only a week ago at the age of 47. He left a legacy in art, but he also left a legacy in life as a genuine hero. One who certainly never started out to be one, but things are thrust upon us in life sometimes. He stood up to the homophobic bigots and bashers with dignity and pride. I'm really proud I knew him and was part of his story in a small way.

And so this review of Hairspray is dedicated to Keith Pruitt, someone we can all emulate in life.

Ricki Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, a short, chubby teen with big hair who loves to dance in "Hairspray," a 1988 John Waters film starring Divine, Deborah Harry, Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Jerry Stiller, and Mink Stole.

"Hairspray" has now been immortalized on Broadway as an enormous, energetic, fabulously entertaining musical which kept the conceit of a man playing Tracy's mother, again with great success.

"Hairspray" is highly exaggerated in parts, which makes it extra funny, and Waters captures '60s Baltimore beautifully. Corny Collins, who is the Baltimore Dick Clark, would like nothing better than to integrate his television show, but blacks are only permitted to dance one night a week.

The van Tussles are for segregation - that would be Sonny Bono, running for office, his wife Harry (on stage the former Miss Baltimore Crabs, in the film Miss Soft Crab). Harry's hairstyles are fantastic - HUGE - her last hairdo is in the form of an enormous loving cup.

When Tracy's friend Penny takes up with the son of an outspoken black woman, Motormouth Mabel (Ruth Brown), her hysterical mother has her kidnapped and put in the hands of a psychiatrist (Divine as a man) who tries to torture her to stop liking black men. It's so outrageous it's funny, and that's where Waters shows his talent.

When Tracy gets a contract modeling for a plus-sized woman's shop, the owner's live ad on Corny's show begins, "Tubby, tubby, 2 x 4, can't get through the kitchen door." It's this madcap treatment that keeps any of this from being remotely offensive.

All the performances are delightful, and there's a nice turn by Pia Zadora as a black-haired beatnik chick.

"Hairspray" has a lot of warmth that emanates from Tracy and the Turnblad family, and the mood stays upbeat throughout the entire film as the characters dance through life, Tracy with an overlay of blonde hair over her dark flip. Great music, great fun. "Hairspray" in any version is wonderful.

John Waters reveals a somewhat more sentimental side with "Hairspray", a movie several people have told me they absolutely hated. I wondered what it was about Waters' style as a filmmaker that could provoke such anger? I think it's his affection for '60s movie-clichés transposed through nostalgia and Waters' own gross-out sensibilities (and his particular brand of humor, which can be quite wicked). I didn't much care for the film the first time I saw it, but I gave it a second chance and it grew on me. The reckless amateurishness is off-putting at first, but you have to meet "Hairspray" halfway. There is much to enjoy here, not the least of which is Divine as Ricki Lake's mom (and also as a bigoted network bigwig); wheeling and dealing after her daughter finds TV fame, Divine becomes a coiffed society queen, twisting away in front of the television and tossing off jaded quips like, "It's the times...they're a-changin'." The performances are all happily hammy, colorful and amusing, and the lightweight story comfortably shoehorns-in relevant political issues to counterbalance the slapstick. Ricki Lake is very appealing in her debut; also hilarious, Pia Zadora as a beatnik and Debbie Harry as the mother of Lake's main rival ("1-2-cha-cha-CHA, 1-2-cha-cha-CHA!"). It's not a seamless, polished picture, but it does have heart and charm and this sold me--but on the second time around. *** from ****

1st watched 11/12/2008- (Dir-John Waters): Fun and surprisingly watchable John Waters film about an overweight teen trying to make it on a 50's dance show. Rikki Lake is great in the lead and Divine does a good job as her understanding mother. Despite the filmmakers reputation there are very few gross-out scenes and a good anti-racial theme protecting both overweight people and blacks. The movie has a silly premise and approach but actually does a good job of showing how stupid some of the laws against African-Americans were in the fifties and the sixties. The movie also just flat out entertains and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. I'm actually now looking forward to watching other John Water's films because of this one although I'm sure most of them are not as tame as this one.