Nicest Kids in Town

by Delmont, Matthew F.

  HAIRSPRAY

  Like American Dreams, Hairspray focuses on music, television, youth culture, and race relations in the American Bandstand era. Hairspray revolves around the Corny Collins Show, a fictionalized version of the Buddy Deane Show, which broadcast in Baltimore from 1957 to 1963. Like the film’s fictional Corny Collins Show, the Buddy Dean Show was segregated. The station allowed only white teens to attend the weekday broadcasts, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the studio.43 Unlike American Bandstand, whose producers insisted that their racially discriminatory admission policies were color-blind, the Buddy Deane Show’s policy of segregation was explicit. In 1963, the Civic Interest Group, an integrationist group founded at Morgan State University and made up of college and high school students from Baltimore, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for black and white teens to attend the show on a day reserved for black teenagers. After the surprise interracial broadcast, the television station received bomb and arson threats, hate mail, and complaints from parents of white teenagers.44 Facing controversy over the possibility of more integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the Buddy Deane Show in the fall of 1963.

  John Waters, who grew up in Baltimore and was a devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show, drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray in 1988. Waters’s earlier films, low-budget camp comedies like Pink Flamingoes, earned him a following among independent movie fans. Waters brought a milder version of his deadpan camp aesthetic to Hairspray, which had a $2.7 million budget and was his first film to receive a family-friendly PG rating.45 The Wall Street Journal’s film critic commented that “the strangest thing about [Waters’s] latest picture, ‘Hairspray,’ is how very sweet and cheerful it is.”46 In Waters’s film a fat teenage girl, Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), dreams of being a regular dancer on the Corny Collins Show.47 After achieving her goal, Tracy realizes that the show’s policy of segregation is unfair and joins with the black teens who have befriended her to integrate the program. Unlike the tensions that followed the real protest and integration of the Buddy Deane Show, Waters’s Hairspray ends with the protesters succeeding triumphantly. The television news reporter covering the Corny Collins Show’s integration in the film sums up the scene: “You’re seeing history being made today. Black and white together on local TV. The Corny Collins Show is now integrated!”48

  Before making Hairspray, Waters helped to publicize the history of the Buddy Deane Show’s segregation in an essay on the program in his 1986 book Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters. Commenting on the film’s revisionist history, Waters freely admitted that “I gave it a happy ending that it didn’t have.”49 In a 1988 interview Waters said he believed a major Hollywood production would have downplayed the show’s segregation. “I felt that to ignore that fact would be really inau-thentic,” Waters argued. “[I]f Hollywood would have made this movie, they would have had blacks on the show and just ignored the fact that none of the shows … did then.”50 While Waters imagined a happy ending contrary to historical events, his film is clear about segregation on the Buddy Deane Show.

  Hairspray’s happy ending also gave the story a narrative arc that appealed to Broadway and Hollywood producers. Broadway producer Margo Lion, who also grew up watching the Buddy Deane Show as a teenager in Baltimore, approached Waters in 1999 about making a musical from his film. Lion brought in a team of musical composers, lyricists, and writers to bring the show to Broadway. The resulting show maintained the basic structure of Waters’s story, but fitting its transition to Broadway, the new Hairspray featured over a dozen original songs that conveyed the show’s narrative.51 This stage production earned eight Tony Awards, including best musical, and paved the way for a second film version, a musical comedy closely modeled on the Broadway version.52 The 2007 film version of Hairspray is indebted to Waters’s original, but it differs in two important respects. First, with a larger budget, wider distribution, and a well-known cast, the new Hairspray’s commercial goals went well beyond those of Waters’s film. As Michael Lynne, CEO of New Line Cinema noted of translating Hairspray into a big budget Broadway musical and film, “you take a film that was a cult film and you translate it to a medium where it must be a blockbuster if it’s going to succeed. There is no cult version of a Broadway musical.”53 Second, the new Hairspray makes greater use of music, dance, and reconstructions of historical television programs to appeal to a larger audience.54 The way the 2007 version of Hairspray navigates between these commercial aspirations while remaining faithful to Waters’s story makes it the focus of my analysis. The resonance between the Corny Collins Show and American Bandstand, moreover, makes Hairspray a part of the mediated history of American Bandstand.

  Hairspray raises the topic of racial segregation early in the film while introducing the Corny Collins Show (unless otherwise noted, all reference to Hairspray in the rest of this chapter are to the 2007 version). Like American Dreams, the scene opens with Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) and her best friend Penny (Amanda Bynes) rushing home from school. As the girls run home, the scene cuts to the Corny Collins Show dancers and crew getting ready for the start of the program. The two girls arrive in the living room and turn on the television in time for Corny Collins’s (James Marsden) opening monologue, “Hey there teenage Baltimore. Don’t change that channel, because it’s time for The Corny Collins Show.”55 As the film’s audience joins Tracy and Penny in watching the black-and-white recreation of Baltimore’s local teenage dance program, Corny opens the show by singing “The Nicest Kids in Town.” The song’s lyrics introduce the television program and slyly reference the show’s segregation:

  Every afternoon you turn your TV on

  And we know you turn the sound up when your parents are gone

  And then you twist and shout for your favorite star

  And once you’ve practiced every step that’s in your repertoire

  You better come on down and meet the nicest kids in town

  Nice white kids who like to lead the way

  And once a month we have our Negro Day!56 (emphasis added)

  The film calls attention to its use of anachronistic racial terminology by having Corny sing “white” clearly and sharply, and by having all eighteen of the teenage Corny Collins Show dancers join in to sing “Negro Day.” During the song, the film cuts from the Corny Collins Show’s studio where the song is being performed to the living room where Tracy and Penny are dancing along with the show, and to Tracy’s television broadcasting black-and-white images of the Corny Collins Show. Tracy and Penny dance throughout the scene, and the lyrics about the show’s segregation do nothing to break them out of their afternoon routine. In his comments on the film, producer Neil Meron suggests that this normalcy was intended to stand out to the film’s viewers:

  I think young people have a really eye opening experience when they’re watching this movie, just in terms of the racial divide that existed then and about how shocking things were then that aren’t anymore. They want to know if these things actually existed. … There is a truth to Hairspray that really tells young people what it was like, and how far we may have come on certain issues.57

  The lyrics about segregation in “The Nicest Kids in Town” are intended to be both humorous and educational for the film’s audience, but they are presented as part of the everyday order of things for Tracy, Penny, and the teenagers on the Corny Collins Show.

  The film’s audience learns more about the segregation of the Corny Collins Show in the next scene, where Tracy and Penny watch the program on several televisions displayed in the window of an electronics store. As the girls look on, Corny introduces Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah), the host of the one day a month when the show opens its studio to black teenagers. “I’m Motormouth Maybelle,” she says, “reminding [sic] the last Tuesday of the month is rhythm and blues day. That’s right, Negro Day will be coming your way.”58 Before Maybelle can finish her pitch, the camera drifts to Amber Von T
ussle (Brittany Snow), the film’s blonde teenage antagonist. Maybelle says “ah, over here,” reminding the cameraman to refocus on her. In this scene, as in “The Nicest Kids in Town” sequence, the film moves among images of Maybelle on the set of the Corny Collins Show, Tracy and Penny watching Maybelle on the television, and close-ups of the televised picture of Maybelle. The shifts between scenes of the Corny Collins Show being produced and scenes of the film’s characters watching and dancing to the program establish the “liveness” of television within the film’s narrative. The film situates television as central to the lives of the characters even when they are not in the television studio. In turn, the importance of television to the characters’ lives helps to explain their protests against segregation on the Corny Collins Show.

  The musical number “New Girl in Town” highlights the stakes of protesting segregation on the Corny Collins Show. This montage scene contrasts the whiteness of the Corny Collins Show with the show’s segregated Negro Day. “New Girl in Town” also introduces an interracial romance subplot between Maybelle’s son, Seaweed (Elijah Kelley), and Tracy’s friend Penny. Producer Neil Meron described these intersecting story lines in his commentary on the film: “so much happens during this song, which is one of the beautiful things about doing movie musicals that you can’t do on stage … you can accomplish so much during a song visually, storytelling wise.”59 The visual and musical storytelling in “New Girl in Town” starts with Amber and two other white teens performing the song on the set of the Corny Collins Show. Halfway through the song, the scene cuts to a black female trio, the fictional Dynamites, singing the song on Negro Day. This transition, coproducer Craig Zadan noted, “shows you the difference between a vanilla version of the song, with the white girls, and then the soulful version of the song, the sassy version of the song, on Negro Day.”60 In highlighting this change in musical styles, this scene juxtaposes reenactments of the Buddy Deane Show’s segregated white and black days. Unlike the one Monday a month when black teenagers were allowed on the real Buddy Deane Show, Hairspray presents the performances on Negro Day as being more dynamic and original than those on the Corny Collins Show.

  While Waters’s film both accentuated and satirized the distinction between “square” white teenagers and “hip” black youth, Hairspray (2007) uses the different dancing and singing styles to highlight the Corny Collins Show’s appropriation of black culture. Unlike Waters’s film and the Broadway play, which mentioned but never showed Negro Day, this scene is the audience’s first glimpse of Motormouth Maybelle presiding over the black teen dance telecast. After the Dynamites finish singing, the camera focuses on Maybelle as she reads a promotion for a fictional hair care product, “Nap-away” (“Every kink will be gone in a blink”). Queen Latifah plays the Maybelle character with the confidence and energy she displayed in her career as a hip-hop artist, but in this scene she registers disappointment as she reads the advertisement. Zadan argues that in the scene viewers “get to see how much Motormouth Maybelle is happy to be hosting Negro Day, but at the same time how demeaning it is to be doing this ad for this hair product.”61 Maybelle’s negotiation of the limited opportunities offered by this segregated television program is made explicit in the exchange between Maybelle and the program manager, Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), that closes the scene:

  VVT: How dare you pick the same song [“New Girl in Town”]!

  MM: They [The Dynamites] wrote it.

  VVT: You watch yourself. You are one inch from being canceled. You know what your demographic is? Cleaning ladies and lawn jockeys. (Velma walks off)

  MM (to her teenage son): A foot in the door, that’s all it is. One toe at a time.62

  This exchange explicates the montage scenes during “New Girl in Town.” Maybelle’s matter-of-fact line, “they wrote it,” identifies the Dynamites as the writers of “New Girl in Town” and references the numerous historical examples of white artists reaping financial gains by covering black rhythm and blues songs.63 This scene is also the film’s most explicit confrontation regarding racism. Director Adam Shankman called Velma’s “cleaning ladies and lawn jockeys” statement “the most dangerous line” in the film, and Zadan said that they wanted the characters in this scene to go “very, very far with the racism issue.”64 Through this unsubtle exchange, the film reveals Velma to be a racist character and exposes the segregated Corny Collins Show to be a site of racial discrimination. This exchange also establishes the film’s approach to racism. In treating racism as an attitude and locating racial prejudice in a single character, Hairspray makes it possible for the narrative to fix racism through interracial cooperation.

  “Welcome to the Sixties,” a song at the film’s midpoint, foreshadows the resolution of these racial tensions. The Dynamites are integral to the visual and musical composition of the scene, which focuses on Tracy’s convincing her agoraphobic mother, Edna Turnblad (John Travolta), to leave the house and embrace the future. Tracy starts the song, singing “Hey mama, hey mama, look around / Everybody’s groovin’ to a brand new sound,” before turning on the family’s television set to reveal the Dynamites performing dance steps in time with the song.65 As Tracy delivers the title of the song, “Hey mama, welcome to the sixties,” she points toward the television, and her mother’s face registers surprise at the black-and-white image of the Dynamites on the television. While Tracy cajoles her mother, the film returns to the televised image of the Dynamites twice more, and the singers join the vocal track of the song.

  The Dynamites’ visibility is heightened when Tracy finally gets her mother to leave the house. The Dynamites take on a more prominent role in the vocal track, and, through special effects, still images of the group come to life from advertisements on a building, a bus stop, and a billboard. The group also appears on several television screens in a store’s display window. Throughout “Welcome to the Sixties,” the Dynamites get the top billing, which the Corny Collins Show denied them just minutes earlier during the Negro Day segment of “New Girl in Town.” The extreme visibility of this black singing group on television and in public advertisements represents, in the film’s narrative, the progressive changes that await the characters in “the sixties.” Tracy, who initiated these changes, emerges as the integrationist hero to counter the racist villain, Velma.

  The film further establishes television as a site of struggle for racial equality, and Tracy as a champion of integration, through a protest march on the station that broadcasts the Corny Collins Show. The scene opens on a neighborhood street where Maybelle and dozens of black community members are gathering with picket signs reading “Integration, Not Segregation,” “TV Is Black and White,” and “Let Our Children Dance.”66 Tracy emerges from the crowd and tells Maybelle she wants to join the march. The two characters have a brief exchange that establishes what Tracy, the only white person at the rally, stands to lose by challenging segregation:

  MM: You’re going to pay a heavy price.

  TT: I know.

  MM: You’ll never dance on TV again.

  TT: If I can’t dance with Seaweed and Little Inez [Maybelle’s son and daughter], then I don’t want to dance on TV at all. I just want tomorrow to be better.67

  Given the importance the film assigns to Tracy’s dream of dancing on the Corny Collins Show, she risks a lot by joining the protest. Although the film does not portray who organized this protest, Maybelle is heard giving directions and encouragement as the camera pans across the crowd. Maybelle is clearly established as the protest leader when she sings “I Know Where I’ve Been.”

  Producer Craig Zadan describes Maybelle’s ballad as “[t]he emotional core of the movie” and “the number that moves people the most.”68 There is no equivalent song in Waters’s film, which eschews sentimentality in favor of camp humor. “I Know Where I’ve Been” draws instead on the stage version of Hairspray, which raises the story’s emotional stakes in order to make the successful resolution in the final act more joyous. Hairspr
ay (2007) encourages this emotional reaction by presenting the song in a serious tone without any of the verbal or visual jokes found in the film’s other songs. The film also links the song with a protest march that gives the scene a visual component resembling historical images of civil rights marches. In contrast to the dance numbers in the rest of the film, Maybelle delivers a slow and soulful version of “I Know Where I’ve Been,” with backup vocals by an offscreen gospel choir.69 As Maybelle leads the crowd to the television station, dozens of black Baltimoreans join the protestors, and these marchers lip-sync the choirs’ part. At several points in the scene, moreover, the camera films the crowd from the front so that Maybelle and the protestors are singing and marching directly toward the screen. Through the growth of the crowd and the rising emotion of the song, the film further establishes the protest against segregation on television as a major civil rights issue for the film’s characters.

  This scene also differentiates the film’s segregation theme from the main character’s struggle to become popular as a fat teenage girl.70 Waters’s film, which satirizes discrimination against black and fat teenagers, does not clearly distinguish between the two. In the DVD commentary for the new film, moreover, Waters suggests: “If we’re making a movie about outsiders, black people and integration, then what’s even further? I think a fat girl gets more hassle than a black girl. If you ask any really fat people, they say they walk down the street and nobody looks at them.”71 In contrast to Waters’s suggestion, Hairspray (2007) does not treat racial discrimination and anti-fat prejudice as equivalents. While Hairspray (2007) also uses Tracy’s weight to universalize her outsider appeal, the film assigns more emotional power to the segregation subplot and to Queen Latifah’s character than to Tracy’s pursuit of acceptance and popularity. Rather than suggesting that all outsiders face similar struggles as Waters’s film sometimes implies, Hairspray (2007) focuses more attention on the injustice of racial segregation and discrimination.