JoeOE18
Posts: 4
Joined: 5/5/2006
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A musical dance through a story of racial divide in 1960's Baltimore Hairspray focuses on corpulent teenager Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) and her dream of appearing on the 'Corny Collins Show', a local all singing, all dancing TV show featuring only the coolest kids in town. Her resulting success in obtaining a place on the show, and new found celebrity status, are made all the more confusing by a crush on 'Corny Collins Show' hotshot Link (Zac Efron) and the scheming of station boss Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer). However, the overarching theme is of the ills of racial segregation and Tracy's fight for increased integration - The fact that the 'Corny Collins Show' has a 'Negro night' every week shows just how backwards things are as the film begins. Aiming at such a weighty moral issue when what we are watching is, at it's core, cute songs and dances coupled with some cliched characters, might seem like a step to far; but Hairspray treads the line well enough. Whether or not this is an accurate representation of Baltimore in 1962 Tracy's admirable racial naivety gives the film a greater thematic presence than could ever be achieved by a predictable love story or traditional nemesis wranglings. Whilst the telling presented here might be a little too simple at times it never dumbs things down so far as to be offensive. In a way this simplistic approach lends itself to the general feeling of the film; there might be something serious going on here, but in the end all we really want to do is have fun. Michelle Pfeiffers portrayal of the aforementioned nemesis is steeped in caricature but serves it's purpose - we couldn't have evil being done in the world without a central character to pin the blame on now could we. Christopher Walken similarly does not seem to be trying to hard, delivering fatherly pep talks and ill advised duets with a fat suited John Travolta without much enthusiasm. Much attention has been focused on John Travolta's decision to gussy u
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