A Few Thoughts on Hairspray

Today was another day that, months ago, I’d bought tickets for a play that I of course won’t be seeing now. As I did with The Color Purple back in April, I originally planned to sit down and listen to the cast recording for the Broadway production of Frozen, following it up with a Top Five Songs post. However, I’m not in the mood for it right now. I’ll get around to it some other time, but for now, I have something different in mind.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, streaming free theatre on his The Shows Must Go On YouTube channel, got through all of his shows that have been professionally recorded and has, it seems, moved on to some of the live musical events put on by NBC in recent years. It just so happened that this weekend’s show is Hairspray. I saw this back when it aired at the end of 2016, and I enjoyed it pretty well then, although I didn’t wind up writing a review for it. And I’m not reviewing it today either, but I will another day. Instead, I’d just like to talk about some of my thoughts about the show as I watched it again this week (a few spoilers.)

Back in high school, when I was first introduced to Hairspray via the original Broadway cast recording, I was a definite fan of it. The music was catchy, it was my introduction to Kerry Butler and Matthew Morrison, Tracy Turnblad was a plucky/rootable heroine, and I liked the message. I do remember thinking some of the lyrics seemed a little glib given the subject matter (I also hadn’t seen the original John Waters film yet, so I didn’t know where some of that sensibility came from.) Over the years, my impressions of the show have gotten a lot more complex.

It’s pretty clear that Tracy fits into a White Savior role. Even though her work to integrate The Corny Collins Show is done alongside Motormouth, Seaweed, and the other Black characters, it’s still her story and she’s the one leading the charge. White allies obviously have a place in the fight against racism, but that place shouldn’t be front and center, and unfortunately, that’s where the media frequently puts them. Hairspray is one more example of a story about Black issues that centers on whiteness, and even back in 2002, we weren’t aching for more of that narrative. This is especially egregious in Hairspray Live! because, likely as a side effect of cutting “The Big Dollhouse,” Tracy becomes the only person who gets arrested at the protest. Really?!

Even more uncomfortably, we see how Tracy gets her spot on The Corny Collins Show in the first place by appropriating Black culture/dance styles. In fairness to her, she learns these steps directly from Seaweed and her first wish is for them to dance together in front of Corny – plus, from a meta perspective, the show has Seaweed cheering her on in taking his moves, using him to condone her actions. But despite that, what we ultimately see is the white girl gaining recognition by using Black moves, which, when paired with the White Savior narrative, isn’t a good look.

Fortunately, for all of Tracy’s missteps, she has a good heart, and like I said, the minute she learns Seaweed’s moves, she wants them to be able to dance together. Appropriating Black culture gets her in the door, but once she’s there, she wants to be able to hold that door open to let in the Black people that helped her. She wants to give credit where credit is due, and and she wants to take part in making that dream a reality. Rewatching Hairspray Live!, a lot of my favorite scenes were probably the ones where Tracy and Seaweed are dancing together – in detention, at Motormouth’s record shop, and finally, triumphantly on The Corny Collins Show.

And even though the whole “well, we rolled up our sleeves and solved segregation in this 2-hour musical!” vibe is definitely trite, and I can see how some might find it insultingly-simplistic against the backdrop of what’s been going on, it’s also a nice fantasy, just for a moment. It’s heartwarming when Tracy storms the stage of The Corny Collins Show announcing, “This is my dance, and it’s for everybody!”, with all the Black kids running in to join her. And maybe in a show where a girl gets sent to detention for “hair-hopping” and there’s like a 15-foot-tall novelty can of hairspray with Harvey Fierstein hiding inside, maybe a little fantasy is all right.