You Can‘t Stop the Beat: Hairspray

You Can‘t Stop the Beat: Hairspray

Be ready to shake and shimmy with Adam Shankman's film Hairspray. This fun and energetic musical is a fabulous remake of the Broadway show written by John Waters. As the film begins in Baltimore in 1962, a "pleasantly-plumped," white teenager named Tracy Turnblad is overly enthused about the Corny Collins Show. The Corny Collins Show is a show solely about dancing, with a monthly Negro Day. Tracy and her best friend, Penny Pingleton, hurry home every day after school for the show to watch heart-throb Link Larkin.

However, after one of the stars leave the show, the show holds auditions for anyone who is willing to try out. Tracy quickly takes the opportunity, but her mom disapproves because she believes the other teenagers will make fun of her. Without her mother's approval, Tracy continues to go to the auditions and impresses Corny Collins and Link Larkin; unfortunately, the stage manager repeatedly tries to get Tracy off the show. The stage manager and her daughter bring chaos against Tracy, but with her old and new friends it is harder then they imagined. Tracy gets help from teenagers of different sizes and race.

"I'm a modern kind of girl, I'm all for integration." I wanted to be like Tracy. Tracy was my heroine, she made the television program diverse. Not only with shape and size, but also the mixture of races. She showed that we can all walk this world together. There is no reason to be segregated. Segregation was an important theme in this movie, without that incite I don't think the film would have had much of an effect on audiences. It stressed points that needed to be emphasized, yet it kept me intoned and laughing with every song and dance number.

Every character in the film explodes with a great deal of energy. The excitement from everyone comes right out of the screen, which made me feel the energy they were expressing. It practically captures more energy than a Broadway production, and I was surprised by that. The choreography goes right along with it. It was meant for a musical with such high energy; it made me want to get up and dance. The songs, "You Can't Stop the Beat," "I Can Hear the Bells," and "Welcome to the 60's," just added to the energy. Its great to watch these songs unfold as they take the soul of Baltimore and introduce that soul to the audience. From beginning to end, the music, choreography, hair,