(2007) A musical comedy based on John Waters's 1988 film is as kitschy as any of the joke items in Wilbur Turnblad's novelty shop and as corny as the teen-dance TV program in 1962 Baltimore. Occasionally funny (pay attention to the song lyrics for the best lines), but this is a fat girl's fantasy of fairness and racial integration.

Other than Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky), who else was sleeping through history class? Disney-fying the sad story of America's stumbling (not the smooth moves of these dancers) through the '60s toward racial and gender enlightenment (maybe some people have forgotten that there were murders, riots, police beating of blacks participating in nonviolent sit-ins, bombings, and assassinations), dignifying with more whitewash that besmirched era (my dad made no attempt to hide his dislike of my colored friends, disallowing any to enter our home) isn't my idea of entertainment.

Joyful Tracy with her beehive hairdo and radio sings of her love of her hometown on her way to school where she gets threatened with detention for "inappropriate hair height." Her dream is to win the Miss Teenage Hairspray dance contest on the Corny Collins (James Marsden) TV Show with its "nice white kids" and once-a-week Negro Day with Miss Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah).

When Brenda, one of the teen regulars has to take leave from the show (for nine months), Corny holds an audition for a replacement. In order to appear Tracy and her closest friend Penny Piingleton (Amanda Bynes) have to cut class. WYZT's station manager Velma von Tussle (Michelle Pfieffer in another role as the vixen), whose daughter Amber (Brittany Snow) has been Miss Teenage Hairspray for the past two years, rejects Tracy for her size and for favoring racial integration. The one-time Miss Baltimore Crabs, Velma, who knows how to win contests, sings: "They padded their cups/ But I screwed the judges."

Tracy's mother Edna (John Travolta) - a large woman with size 54-triple-E bust, who hasn't left her house since 1951, taking in other people's laundry - had not wanted her to audition because, as she told her husband Wilber (Christopher Walken): "They're gonna hurt her." But her father had told Tracy: "You follow your dream."

In the detention room (apparently unsupervised) Tracy discovers mostly black kids and makes acquaintance with Seaweed, Motormouth's son. Fantasizing about Link Larkin (Zac Efron), the Corny Collins Show's teen heartthrob, Tracy sings "I can hear the bells." Seeing her moves during the hop, Link is smitten and Corny selects her as a regular replacement. Asked what she would do if she could be president, Tracy says: "I'd make everyday Negro Day." The black-and-white relationships begin with Seaweed ("The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice") and Penny ("Now that I've tasted chocolate, I'm never going back").

When Tracy's asked to be the spokesperson for Mr Pinky's Hefty Hideaway, she gets her mother, as her agent, out of the house. Velma expresses her exasperation while attempting to seduce Wilbur, calling him "Obtuse," to which he replies, "I flunked geometry."

There's an anti-segregation protest march when Velma cancels Negro Day, from which Link backs out: "Men always put their career first," Motormouth tells a disappointed Tracy, who conks the police sergeant on the head with her poster, resulting in a manhunt for the chubby checkerboard girl as the contest for Miss Teenage Hairspray takes place.

The opening song and the last, "Cooties," at the conclusion of the credits, are the best. It all makes for a nice white novelty moral message like a big butt sitting on a whoopie cushion emitting an unexpectedly sweet sound.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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