Meet the Message, Not the Parody

The third and latest version of “Hairspray� is nothing if not enthusiastic. Adapted from the 2002 Broadway musical (itself an adaptation of John Waters’ 1988 gross-out, a film for which the designation of “cult� was seemingly invented), “Hairspray� arrives in theaters smelling like aerosol and with a fresh coat of fix.

   If the movie is also a bit careless, well, that too is part of its oversized charm.

   “Hairsprayâ€� isn’t a musical so much as a hog stomp. In the opening number, a song with the suspiciously civic-minded title of “Good Morning Baltimore,â€� we’re presented with the sight of the overweight Tracy Turnblad (newcomer Nikki Blonsky, by way of Great Neck), singing from the top of a garbage truck. Two things are important here: teenage lung-baring and a certain obliviousness to circumstance.

   Whereas the original “Hairsprayâ€� was an affectionate parody of teenage “message moviesâ€� of the early 1960s, the New “Hairsprayâ€� is a message movie. The moral? Americans ought to think big.

   Does it matter that Tracy, with a figure of a circle, has little to no chance of winning Baltimore’s Miss Teenage Hairspray award?

   No.

   Not any more than it hinders John Travolta from playing Tracy’s mother, Edna, in drag.

   Sleepwalking through high school, Tracy dreams of appearing on “The Corny Collins Show,â€� a sort of local “American Bandstandâ€� for Baltimore teens. During a stint in detention, she picks up a dance step from Seaweed (Elijah Kelley), a black classmate with whom she shares an appreciation for R&B.

   Records in hand, Tracy bops her way onto the show.

   As directed by Adam Shankar (working double duty as director of choreography), the musical sequences move with the frantic frenzy of a teenage crush. Tracy is so bubbly that her crush on Link Larkin (Zac Efron), a standout on “Corny Collins,â€� pours forth as though from a bottle of Cherry Coke: wha, oh, oh, oh.

   In truth, Tracy has a better chance of dancing with the impossible Link than Seaweed. “Corny Collinsâ€� is a segregated program. Not only can Tracy and Seaweed not dance together, blacks aren’t even allowed on “The Corny Collins Show.â€� Their appearances are limited to the heavily chaperoned “Negro Day,â€� a once-a-month appearance complete with advertisements for hair-straighteners. (As if to remind us of the popular poisons of the day, “Hairsprayâ€� then cuts to two women celebrating their pregnancies with scotch and cigarettes.)

   A firm believer in the meritocracy of “The Twist,â€� Tracy doesn’t believe in race. “I wish every day was ‘Negro Day!â€� she gushes for the camera, thereby earning the enmity of the station manager, Velma Von Tussle. As played by Michelle Pfeiffer, doing her best impersonation of an Ice Witch, Tussle has some of the funnier (read: meaner) lines in “Hairspray.â€� “This isn’t a black and tan cocktail,â€� she says in a racist speech that one suspects was lifted unedited from an earlier “Hairsprayâ€� script.

   The same is not true for Travolta. For most of “Hairsprayâ€� he’s stuck ­— literally stuck in the poundage of rubber and makeup needed to fill out Edna, an overweight and shy housewife. Unlike previous Ednas — most notably the actor Harvey Fierstein and the drag queen Divine — Travolta plays Ms. Turnblad straight, so to speak; no winks between takes.

   The trick of a musical, of course, is to sublimate the tension of real life into dance. But maybe “Hairsprayâ€� goes over too easily, as when Tracy and Seaweed interrupt a live broadcast of “The Corny Collins Showâ€� and, dancing “The Checkerboard,â€� lay out a vision of interracial harmony. Even in her most careless moments, Travolta’s Edna seems incapable of forgetting this, stealing a few graceful steps beneath the lines of her drying laundry.

   Nothing wrong with that

   “Hairsprayâ€� is rated PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking. It is playing at the Cineroms in Winsted and Torrington in Connecticut.

    

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