My article for the Christmas issue of Brown Paper ('Wrapping Paper')

HAIRSPRAY
By The Duke

I've never been a fan of hairsprays, to be honest. They never seem to work in the fashion that is detailed on the bottle label; you end up getting disgusting white sticky things in your hair, and then you're simply left with no choice but to wash it again. This hairspray, however, is awesome. I figure that most people's main reason for going to see the film is that they want to see John Travolta in drag. This is fairly understandable; Travolta has played a multitude of roles - some great, some probably rather crap - but never before has he played a woman. A fat woman. Perhaps everyone is just as disappointed by this sad little fact as I am, and so decided it was utterly vital for them to run along to the cinema and give the film a watch. As for me, I don’t think I’ll ever regret going; I foot-tapped my way through the entire film and – it sounds cheesy, but it’s true – I really did laugh at every joke made. The cinema itself actually had a great audience that night, although there was a woman in front of us who had the loudest laugh ever, and also the somewhat annoying tendency to turn to her young son every five minutes and inform him that the large, jovial woman on screen was in fact a man (can you imagine if the poor young boy became terribly confused by this, and then was falsely led to believe that all people who appear to be women are in fact men, and perhaps even vice versa? How tragic that would be.)

Hairspray is simply there to enjoy. It’s bright and colourful, with wonderful recreations of 1960s hairstyles and clothing, but it’s also not afraid to hit the more serious notes, such as racial integration; Tracy (newcomer Nikki Blonsky), our heroine, becomes friends with some ‘afro-tastic’ coloured kids in her high school, who she later joins in a protest march, in an attempt to put a much-needed end to segregation. There is a lull in the jokes here, as Queen Latifah sings the heartfelt “I Know Where I’ve Been”, but then Tracy bashes a police officer with her protest sign, and it’s all back to good ol’ blown-way-out-of-proportion humour, but without making the audience feel awkward about the fact that they’re laughing right after a very poignant scene.

You don’t have to like musicals to like Hairspray. You just need to like music. Let’s face it: it’s not often you get an awesome film which encourages its viewers to not be afraid of being ‘different’ by playing them music (what a way to convince us all). The songs have fantastic lyrics full of the most ridiculous sexual allusions, and James Marsden, the guy who you may recognise as the X-Man who can shoot laser beams of death out of his eyes suddenly appears on-screen as a guy called ‘Corny’ who thinks he is an aeroplane, and keeps grinning cheesily at everyone (he’s great, though).
The DVD and soundtrack are both out now, so if you’re fed up of the Christmas tunes blasting out the radio and want something different to listen to, go out and get your hands on Hairspray and then jig around the living room (or cha-cha, if you’re listening to Michelle Pfeiffer’s rather spiffing “(Legend Of) Miss Baltimore Crabs”) and wile away your Christmas holidays in a fun way.

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Now playing: Weezer - American Gigolo
via FoxyTunes