Film / Hairspray (2007)

A 2007 musical romantic comedy, this is the film adaptation of Hairspray, which in turn was a Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of 1988 film Hairspray (making this one a Recursive Adaptation). It was directed and choreographed by Adam Shankman from a screenplay by Leslie Dixon.

The Corny Collins Show dominates the screens of teenagers in 1962 Baltimore. Overweight teen Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) and her best friend Penny Pingleton (Amanda Bynes), both of whom are huge fans of the show, want nothing more than to audition. Tracy's overweight mother Edna (John Travolta) is reluctant, but her father Wilbur (Christopher Walken) is supportive and encourages Tracy to chase her dreams. However, Tracy is rejected by racist producer Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer) for her weight and support of integration. During detention, Tracy meets black dancer Seaweed J. Stubbs (Elijah Kelley), the son of Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah), who hosts the show's "Negro Day". Seaweed teaches Tracy exciting new dance moves while they're there, giving her an edge over the other white dancers.

Link Larkin (Zac Efron), the most popular male dancer on the show, spots her dancing in detention and encourages her to attend a record hop, which causes her to be hired by Corny himself (James Marsden) and eventually become one of the more popular performers on The Corny Collins Show. Link's girlfriend and Velma's daughter, lead female dancer Amber Von Tussle (Brittany Snow), feels threatened by Tracy, since she wants to win the Miss Teen Hairspray pageant, and Tracy is putting up a genuine fight for the title. All this eventually culminates in a tumultuous pageant, a few new romances, and a fight for the integration of Baltimore television.

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken have a scene where she advances on him sexily, and he tries to stop her by using practical jokes as weapons. It's a deliberate homage to the end of Batman Returns, where they did the same thing as Catwoman and Max Shreck (although Walken used an actual gun in the latter).
  • This isn't the first time Zac Efron has played a character in a musical film where he has two girls fighting over him.
  • John Travolta knows the value of being able to get blood out of car upholstery.
  • Speaking of Pulp Fiction, check out some of Edna's moves when she joins the dance in "You Can't Stop the Beat," especially when she walks backwards and gestures at Velma—the choreography is extremely similar to the iconic twist contest in Pulp.
  • This isn't Michelle Pfeiffer's first time in a musical.
• Adaptation Distillation: The movie removes the jail plotline from the stage version entirely, in favor of going right to Tracy on the run.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Velma Von Tussle goes from being merely annoying and overbearing in the stage musical to being a horrible boss and rigging the pageant in Amber's favor here. She's also a great deal more openly—and viciously—racist, whereas in the stage musical her motivations are more centered on Amber's successes.
  • Penny's mother is a minor example. Her harshness towards Penny is much more pronounced in the movie, and she doesn't have her moment of redemption in the end.
• Big Damn Kiss: Tracy and Link share this at the end of the film.
• Bigot with a Crush: After losing the Miss Hairspray contest, the racist Amber is seen crushing on a black boy looking at her from the stage. Her even more racist mother Velma notices this and tells her to stop it. However, it's implied Amber is only bigoted because of her mother's terrible influence.
• Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Inez Stubbs becomes the first black girl to win Miss Teenage Hairspray.
• Casting Gag:
  • Jerry Stiller plays fashion store owner Mr Pinky. Stiller played Wilbur Turnblad in the original 1988 film. Several other actors from the original and the director appear as well — see The Cameo below for more.
  • Brittany Snow essentially fulfilled the same role as Tracy in her show American Dreams, except she actually dances on American Bandstand.
• Chekhov's Gun: The large, hollow hairspray canister in the foreground while Corny and Velma are arguing about putting Tracy on the show.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • When Velma switches the Miss Teenage Hairspray votes, Edna, in disguise, is the only one to see her do it; later, it's Edna who orchestrates the Engineered Public Confession described below.
  • Early in the movie, Velma harasses a cameraman for not giving Amber enough screen time during the Corny Collins Show. Guess who helps Edna and Wilbur expose Velma's cheating by letting them use his camera?
• Comically Missing the Point: This exchange with Motormouth Maybelle and Tracy Turnblad when the former tries to get Tracy to be aware of the blatant racism in the 60s:
  Motormouth Maybelle: You've been dozing off in history class??
  Tracy: Yes, always.
• Continuity Nod: The film makes several references to scenes from the 1988 movie that don't happen in the new version. During one song montage, Tracy is hit in the head during dodgeball, and one of the nasty rumors Amber tries to start is about Tracy getting put into Special Ed, though it doesn't actually happen in this version.
• Creator Cameo: John Waters, director of the 1988 film, appears as a flasher during "Good Morning Baltimore", and director Adam Shankman, composer/lyricist Mark Shaiman, and co-composer/lyricist Scott Wittman play talent agents. The associate choreographers also make appearances.
• Curtain Clothing: An extremely subtle one: the dress Penny wears during "You Can't Stop The Beat" is made from the curtains in her room.
• Curse Cut Short: Amber sounds like she's about to call another female dancer a whore before Link intervenes.
• Dark Horse Victory: Little Inez's victory in the Miss Teenage Hairspray contest. Despite not even being a candidate in the competition, she got a tidal wave of phone calls from viewers who liked her dancing, and she ends up winning.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance : Many tongue in cheek examples, particularly during "Welcome to the Sixties." Two pregnant women smoking and drinking martinis, a carful of children standing up on the seats, and so on. Also, the circular pins worn by a couple of the girls, which indicated a girl was a virgin. Brenda is wearing one in the "Just nine months" scene, which is made even more ironic by the possibility that Corny is the father (look closely, you'll see them arguing in a Funny Background Event).
• Dirty Cop: The lead police officer who's working for Velma. He finds an excuse to throw Tracy, Edna, Motormouth Maybelle, and the rest of her protest group in jail, simply by accusing Tracy of assaulting a police officer (she only barely hit him with her protest sign). It's played for laughs, but he also helps engineer ridiculous propaganda against Tracy that leads to her being accused on the news of savagely beating a cop and an Eagle Scout/decorated Korean War vet.
• The Dog Bites Back: The cameraman who lets the Turnblads use his camera for Velma's Engineered Public Confession is the same one that she belittles and threatens in the beginning of the movie.
• Engineered Public Confession: Velma admits to cheating to ensure her daughter the crown, only to find out a camera has been on her the whole time.
• Eye Awaken: Done by Tracy in the opening scene just before “Good Morning Baltimore”. The first shot the audience sees of Tracy is her eyes fluttering open to the music as she gets ready for school.
• Freudian Slip:
  Velma: They're kids, Corny. That's why we have to steer them in the white direction.
  Corny: Right direction?
  Velma: ...Didn't I say that?
• The Hero Dies: It definitely doesn't actually happen in the musical or the movie, but the final lines of the song "New Girl in Town" imply that the new girl mentioned in the lyrics (Tracy?) was run over by a moving van and died (or the old girl died and the new girl who was in the van became the only one — which might make more sense in context):
  Hey, look out for that moving van
  Look out, look out, look out, look out!
  [Beat]
  She was the new girl in... to-oo-own!
• Humiliation Conga: Amber has Tracy steal her thunder and her boyfriend, gets hoisted above the set, tears her dress and sprains her ankle getting down, and loses her crown to a child on live TV. She's surprisingly good natured about it in the end, though, possibly making this a subversion. It's played straight with Velma; however, whose humiliation is more thorough and not taken well.
• Indy Ploy: Corny Collins isn't responsible for any of the events of the movie, but damned if he isn't ready to use them to his advantage. He knows Inez Stubb's name and the very specific clause to let her win, implying that he's been waiting and preparing for any kind of situation for him to push his agenda.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Unlike in the Broadway Musical, Velma Von Tussle and Prudy Pingleton don't undergo HeelFaceTurns at the end. After all, racists in real life don't change their ways instantly.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Velma Von Tussle gets struck by this. After going to great lengths to win the Miss Hairspray contest through throwing people in prison through false arrest, cheating, and even seduction, she is caught on the television admitting to her daughter that she helped her win the competition through cheating, and as a result she gets fired by her boss and publicly humiliated.
• Life Isn't Fair: Invoked with Tracy in the scene with her father, after the latter is thrown out of their house for supposedly cheating on Edna. While having a conversation with Wilbur about the cancellation of Negro Day on the Corny Collins show, Tracy says that despite her optimistic views, she's come to accept how unfair life can be. She also says that she's realized that fairness won't happen because people want it to.
• Living Photo: In a case of Adaptation Deviation, during "Without Love", Link sings to Tracy's photo, and they duet. In the stage version, both characters sung together during this number, but since the film required the characters to be in separate locations, they used this trope to keep the duet without having them in the same place.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Amber, although she only seems to be like that because her mother holds her to very high standards. In the end, she accepts defeat, and (in the musical at least) Tracy and the others are happy to invite her to join in the final number.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: While Penny and Seaweed don't get married at the end of the movie (they're only teens after all), it's a Discussed Trope. When Motormouth Maybelle learns that Penny and Seaweed are in love, she approves but warns them that not everyone will be so accepting.
  Motormouth Maybelle: So this is love. Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a never-ending parade of stupid.
  Penny: So you met my mom.
• Mama Bear: Edna barricades a police officer from chasing her daughter, despite the fact that she was dragged into a protest she didn't really want to be in. In a deleted scene, she also unflinchingly demands that the same police officer apologize to the van full of peaceful protesters. You almost forget this is the same woman who hadn't left her house in eleven years.
• Morning Routine: The film opens with Tracy waking up to her alarm clock, getting up and getting ready for school, then walking there while singing, dancing and greeting people who, judging by their reactions, appear to be used to seeing her every morning.
• Mighty Whitey: Tracy, a white high school girl obsessed with dancing who has no real understanding of the sociopolitical scene or the importance of integration — she spends all day at school sleeping and has no knowledge of American history either — comes up with the idea to do a "march" to save the 'Negro Day' TV show, while all the black people who have been fighting and striving to make a difference just stand around accepting being forced out from TV.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Velma attempts to make Wilbur look like he was cheating on Edna with her as a plan to make sure Tracy doesn't participate in the pageant.
• Mom Looks Like a Sister: Invoked. In one scene (Welcome to the 60s), Mr. Pinky asks Tracy if Edna is her older sister in an attempt to butter Edna up.
• New Kid Stigma: The singers in "The New Girl in Town" mention wanting to "get [the new girl] after school" at one point in the song, out of jealousy.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Tracy participates at the march and hits a cop on the head with her sign and runs away, it gives Velma a good opportunity to stop Tracy from participating in the pageant by having the same police guard the entrance, making Tracy and the others devise a plan to sneak into the pageant. If Tracy had been bailed out along with Maybelle, she wouldn't have had to hide from the cops and sneak into the pageant!
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Playing right into Tracy and friends' plans, Velma forces all the security guards outside despite ample security outside in response to the heroes' diversion (Wilbur dressed as Tracy), getting them locked out. The guards then beat down the door with a hairspray battering ram, with Tracy secretly hiding inside. Once Velma realizes what they've done, they all rush to the doors, only for all of them to find themselves locked out once again.
  • After Amber loses the Miss Teenage Hairspray competition, Velma then admits to Amber that she rigged the votes. Edna gleefully informs Velma that her confession was broadcasted on camera, which causes Velma to lose her job.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Dynamites are stand-ins for The Supremes.
• No Sense of Personal Space: Tracy, possibly, since in "I Can Hear the Bells", she has no problem shoving people out of her way and pinning a guy against a locker.
• Not His Sled: Although it sticks pretty close to the musical, the film does change up a few key moments in the story.
  • In the musical, Tracy gets arrested after the protest, but eventually breaks out of prison with Link's help. Here, she actually escapes the police before they can apprehend her, and flees to Penny's house to hide out.
  • Tracy manages to sneak into the Miss Hairspray pageant by hiding in a giant hairspray can, Trojan Horse-style. The same thing happens in the musical, but as a Bait-and-Switch: Velma thinks that Tracy's hiding in the can, when it's actually Edna. Tracy merely enters the pageant from the front door.
  • Tracy isn't crowned Miss Hairspray this time around. Instead, it's Little Inez.
• One Head Taller: Inverted with Penny and Seaweed, as she is noticeably taller than him. In the 1988 movie, Penny is of average height while Seaweed is very tall indeed.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Penny's mother, Prudy, forbids Penny from watching the Corny Collins Show, but Prudy watches the show herself.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Velma Von Tussle is quite blatantly racist, and she seems to revel in her own misdeeds. In the original film, she's more of a Lawful Selfish Stage Mom who's willing to court segregationist attitudes to look respectable.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Link doesn't want to join in the march for fear of ruining his career.
  Link: I'm sorry, Trace. I just think that this adventure's...a little too big for me.
  Tracy: (gasps and backs away with a hurt look)
  Link: ...oh God, nonono, that's not what I—
  Tracy: I get it, Link. It's your shot.
  Link: No, Trace! That's not what I—
  Tracy: (trying to hold back her tears) It's fine... (leaves Link behind)
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Corny Collins, the dance show host, who is very open to bending the rules and doing away with segregation.
• Remake Cameo: Jerry Stiller, who played Wilbur Turnblad in the original movie, plays Mr. Pinky here (the store owner who runs a plus-sized boutique and wants Tracy to do commercials for him when she becomes a hit on the Corny Collins show). Ricki Lake (Tracy from the 1988 film) also appears, as a talent agent. Even John Waters has a cameo, as (who else?) "the flasher who lives next door."
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Alpha Bitch Velma tries to seduce Wilbur simply so she can cause strife between Wilbur and his wife. Wilbur is so faithful to his wife that he's completely oblivious to her advances, but Velma's plan works anyway because she just throws herself at Wilbur as his wife comes in the door to "catch" them in the "act".
• Sexy Coat Flashing: Played for Laughs; "The Flasher Who Lives Next Door" is apparently a well-known figure in the neighborhood, and we see him from behind opening his trench coat for three women. Judging from their horrified reaction, though, it's not sexy to anyone but him. (Even better, the flasher is a cameo for John Waters.)
• Shout-Out: Director Adam Shankman included several homages to and winks at the films that were his inspiration. The opening shot is a mix of the opening shots for West Side Story and The Sound of Music. Penny's dress at the end of the film is made from her curtains, just like the Von Trapp children's play clothes that Maria makes out of old curtains in The Sound of Music. Several of Tracy's scenes — such as her ride atop the garbage truck, and her post-makeover hairstyle in "Welcome to the Sixties" — are taken from the Barbra Streissand film version of Funny Girl. Link singing to Tracy's photograph, which sings back, is directly inspired by The Broadway Melody of 1938, in which Judy Garland sings to a photo of Clark Gable.
• Theme Twin Naming: Noreen and Doreen, the two twin dancers on the Council.
• Truth in Television: Edna forbids Tracy from auditioning for a spot on the Corny Collins Show. This is because she believes that since Tracy is overweight, she will get rejected and her feelings will get hurt. Anyone growing up in the 60s will know how difficult it was for people who didn't meet Hollywood's standards of beauty to break into the entertainment industry, and it's still true today.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: This is where Velma hides votes when rigging the pageant. Edna spots Velma quietly tucking the voting tallies inside between her breasts during the live show, which is what tips her off to her villainy and inspires her to film Velma confessing her cheating to Amber.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Amber loses it at the end of the film when Tracy secretly enters the Miss Teenage Hairspray pageant.
  • Velma has a great one after Inez wins Miss Teenage Hairspray, leading to an Engineered Public Confession which costs her her job.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Velma pulls a variant of this when Edna walks in on her seducing the clueless Wilbur. As Edna enters the room, Velma pulls him onto her to make it look as if he was the one seducing her, and she succeeds.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: According to the script, the show begins in "early June" on a Monday and ends on June 6th, 1962. Schools did not run into June in 1962, especially in Baltimore, because there was no air conditioning then and it's oppressively hot and humid in Maryland at that time of year.

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