IBARW

[skygiants]

Last night (after some public transit-related trials and travails - oneechan19, I think that we are cursed, because it was EXACTLY THE SAME THING that happened last time) I went to see Hairspray.

I enjoyed it a lot, I really did. The music was great, the dancing was fantastic, the story was uplifting, and Mini Simon Tam jumping spastically about as he sings and makes out with a photograph is about the funniest thing I've seen this month - but by about halfway through I realized that something bothering me.

Hairspray is a story about integration, and equality, and allowing black dancers onto an all-white program. So why is it centered around a white girl, with the black characters relegated to the position of sidekicks and background dancers? Why did we fade out on the kiss between the nice white couple, instead of the (much more interesting, to my mind) interracial romance, or Queen Latifah's character taking the center stage spot she deserved, or a long shot of the finally-integrated dancing set?

Why do the black dancers need a white girl to tell them to march - and when they do march, why is the one white girl among hundreds of protesters at the front of the line, in the center of the camera?

Don't get me wrong. I like Tracy Turnblatt. She's a great character, and a likeable one, and in an ideal world this story could be entirely her story without raising larger concerns of perceptions and of marginalization of people of color in the media, because there would be tons of other films and shows and books where the kinds of characters who are side characters in this one would get to be the protagonists.

But this is not that ideal world yet, and once you're aware of those concerns, and of those patterns and trends, it's difficult to turn off the part of your brain that starts wondering why this of all stories - a story about equality and integration - is Tracy Turnblatt's story more than it is Seaweed's or Maybelle's or Little Inez's. Or at least, that's how it has been for me.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person to bring this topic up; I was talking to shati about this last night, and she said she read an article in the paper on the movie that was in a similar vein. So you all may have heard everything I just said already, and apologies if that's so, but I wanted to bring it up anyways. In part just to say that two years ago, I would have seen this movie and loved it, and I don't think I would have noticed any of the things I've talked about in this post. Part of that increased awareness comes from college, but a large part of that is from LJ, and the discussions I've read here, and things like IBARW.

And I'm really grateful to LJ - and to all the people here who are writing about difficult issues, even the people I don't agree with, and to you all, too - for that.

Comments

[vivien]

I think it's hard, sometimes, to bridge generations, and that, I feel, is key here. For better or for worse, I might add.

John Waters, a white man who grew up in the Baltimore of the '60s wrote this story. It was his story that became a movie in the '80s, and then a musical, and then a movie of the musical. So we get this entire twenty year old story set in a framework Mr. Waters wrote.

To you young folks, who are a generation ahead of me, this is not cool. To me in the '80s, watching this for the first time, it was pretty damn cool just to have the subject addressed in such a cool, interesting way.

So again, for better or worse, generational views factor in. I am certainly not saying this is good or right; it's just how it happens.

It is worthy, I think, that people notice and wish for better.