(no subject)

[pensnest]

I've been meaning to post this for a few days, but now I have a story deadline, so it is obviously a good time.

I watched 'Hairspray' the movie (alas) on the plane home from New York, and enjoyed it a lot. The tiny, round heroine is completely adorable, and lots of the dance-y bits made me want to get up and be choreographed. It'd be charming to think that overcoming discrimination was Just That Easy back in 1962, too.

But I have a gripe. I cannot think of a good reason why Tracy's mother has to be played by a man (in the movie, John Travolta). Yes, apparently it's 'tradition' for the various incarnations of this production. But still—why?

'Cause I think it stinks.

Comments

[pensnest]

Hmm. I know nothing about John Waters, although I had read a little bit about the original film and knew that Divine played the mother there. (And a male character also, I believe.) It sounds from your description as though it would have a completely different feel from the 2007 version.

Hmm again. Clearly, the modern version of the film is much more lighthearted "let's make a musical! It'll be fun!" kind of thing. But the message I get from having John Travolta playing Tracy's mother is quite simply: middle aged fat women cannot be sexy. It has to be understood as comic. Possibly I'm influenced by panto, but to me, it's deliberately undercutting the surface message of the songs and the parents' relationship. As a middle aged fat woman who does all right (and incidentally can dance without bumping into things), I just found I resented it more and more as I watched.

[bossymarmalade.livejournal.com]

My biggest problem was that they cast Travolta AT ALL. phaballa's right -- an actual real drag queen would've been infinitely better. Travolta doesn't know what it's like to be/act as a woman, and he doesn't know what it's like to be/act fat, and he FAILS on both counts when it comes to playing the character as anything other than horrifying camp.

[pensnest]

Perhaps that's it - I was increasingly horrified as I watched, to see how wrong it seemed. (And baffled by the blurb in the airline's magazine which said the film deserved to be remembered for more than Travolta's fabulous performance, hah.) It isn't quite a pantomime dame performance, but it isn't a realistic one either.