Hairspray (1988)

Divine as the mother John Waters' first feature film, Mondo Trasho, got him arrested on the unusual charge of "conspiracy to commit indecent exposure". After that his supremacy as the king of bad taste was undisputed, culminating in such joyous outrages as Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble. Hairspray, his first mainstream commercial picture, found him comparatively mellowed, indulging in comic-nostalgic reminiscences of the bourgeois Baltimore of his teenage years.

The film is set in 1962, before the Sixties had begun to fully swing. Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), the full-figured daughter of a fuller-figured momma (Divine, who also doubles in a male role), dreams of being the dancing star of the local teen television show. This leads to underhand tactics by her svelte but nasty rival, Amber Von Tussle (Colleen Fitzpatrick), abetted by her pushy parents (Sonny Bono, Debbie Harry).


Divine as the mother Waters delights in the tackier visual aspects of the era - the fashions, homes, cars, clothes, songs and beehive hairdos - and though he denies any redeeming social qualities in his films, Hairspray shows a winningly wide-eyed anti-racist fervour, with our heroine and her black friends fighting segregationism at the television station. Sadly, two weeks after the film was released, the 300lb transvestite Divine (Harris Milstead) - Waters' friend and muse since schooldays - died from an enlarged heart.

HF January 2003


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