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

[sophistry]

That's one of the things that's actually been bothering me - both about the film, and about how much I love the film. In a way, I can see it as making sense - a story about integration and tolerance that's still focused on the white girl/white couple/white family as just another facet of the racism being portrayed in the film. I just... wish I could believe it was intentional.

Then again, the movie strikes me as being (intentionally???) less about the struggle of black people for acceptance and more about the ways in which racism permeates white society of the time, and how different members of the privileged class see/deal with the change that's coming. (Then again again, is that a racist standpoint for a film to take, or a valid alternate viewpoint? D:)

There is the film's status as an adaptation/remake to take into account, but I haven't seen the original film or the Broadway show, so I can't really speak as to how free the writers might have been to shift the focus of the story or the relative status of the black and white couples without straying so far from the text as to make it a different creature altogether.

[sophistry]

Which is all to say, AHHH COMPLICATED, and I really wanted Maybelle/Corny.

[skygiants]

ME TOO. SOMEONE WRITE THE FANFIC. *cough*

But . . . yeah. All of these things can be taken into account, and honestly, I was really paying close attention at the film's end - because (this is the film studies student in me talking) if the final image of the film had been the integrated stage, or Maybelle dancing and singing (I really hoped it would be Maybelle singing), then I could have seen it as a deliberate meta choice to focus on Tracy until the integration of the show at the end which frees the camera up to focus on whom it will, which would have been kind of cool! And wouldn't have required a lot of changing of the original story, either.

But instead we shifted right back to Tracy and Link. Sigh.

(I can't say it's not a valid viewpoint for the film to take, because, I mean, it's something that was happening and is deserving of coverage. On the other hand, though, it's reflective of a huge pattern that everything is more about the white people's reaction than about the black people who are actually having to deal with it. And what really is problematic about the way it's portrayed is the fact that the black kids need Tracy to lead them instead of being able to do it themselves.)

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

I've also been thinking about this, and from a slightly different angle, because of this: in the original, it's Tracy who wins Miss Hairspray, not Little Inez. And on one level, I like that they changed that, because it means more for Little Inez to win it. But on another, looking at where and when this movie is set, the fat white girl winning the pageant feels more plausible than the black girl winning it. And then on another level, you can ask how much you really want to get into how plausible this movie is in general, and maybe going all out and having the black girl win makes it work as a kind of civil rights fairy tale where goals that would not have been realistically achievable in the early/mid-60s are possible.

So I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing, except that I'd be interested to hear what the people who updated Hairspray have to say about why they changed what they did.

[skygiants]

I would be really interested in that too. I haven't seen the original, but I kind of want to, now, to see what was and wasn't changed.

And . . . yeah. The question of realism vs. fairy tale is a complicated one; I think the problem with saying that Tracy would more believably win the pageant than Little Inez is that I feel the film would still spin it as a complete victory, without questioning the further steps that need to be taken. So I definitely do think I prefer this take on it.

[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.

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the remake, but you really, really should see the original. It's fantastic.

And also, I agree with all that Viv said above. *points*

[oneechan19.livejournal.com]

The public transit system must be out to get you. It's a conspiracy!