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Nov. 30th, 2007 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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.
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Date: 2007-11-30 05:01 pm (UTC)And that's carried over into the musical because they want to honor Waters's original vision. The new movie (and the musical) is cute, but it doesn't have the same gritty punch of the original film. I think of the original 'Hairspray' as being sort of like a crack fic. It's really meant as a very serious social commentary about prejudice, and I think he wrote it as an allegory that's meant to represent the GLBT rights movement. He wrote it in the last 1980s, at the height of the AIDS scare in America when Reagan was president and almost the entire country had been brainwashed into thinking that gay = AIDS.
Anyway, that's just my interpretation. It might not be significant anymore to have the role played by a man. I also don't think John Travolta was the best choice, since he's NOT a drag queen. That takes the role away from the political meaning and sort of makes a mockery of Divine, which isn't really... yeah, I'm not fond of that.
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Date: 2007-11-30 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-11-30 11:55 pm (UTC)Whatever one may think of John Travolta in the role.
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