Hairspray review – John Waters’ musical finds just the right balance of kitsch and sincerity

Consensus largely has it that John Waters’ “commercial” period, which hit full bloom with Hairspray, followed by Cry Baby in 1990 and Serial Mom in 1994, is not a patch on his grungy, radical early works. Yes, the DIY no-budget madness he conjured with Divine and a coterie of Baltimore’s finest drag queens and drug addicts in the 70s across Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble remains perhaps unparalleled in regards to combining the lowest of trash with the greatest of wit, but the turn into more “populist” work didn’t sand off those rough edges; it’s the work of an artist figuring out how to place his rogues' gallery of freaks and nobodies front-and-centre in the American mainstream.

That, in effect, is the underpinning idea of Hairspray. It is essentially a jukebox musical, in which the plus-sized Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) rises to stardom as a dancer on the Top of the Pops-style Corny Collins Show, much to the chagrin of previous golden girl Amber (Colleen Fitzpatrick). It’s the meshing of 50/60s style kitsch and the fantastic music that’s kept the film a minor favourite, but the meat lies in the film’s focus on American pop music’s legacy of segregation. The Corny Collins Show is built on it, in fact (the film is set in 1962), with Black people allowed only as performers and not as audience members or dancers amongst the all-white crews. This sets up a dichotomy between the largely picture-perfect world of The Corny Collins Show and the reality outside of that TV screen – where oppression is a daily reality, something which spurs the righteous and generous Tracy Turnblad to action.

Textually, this dichotomy is simplistically depicted. Racism is bad and so are racists! Black folk are elevated to equal status by the brave actions of One White Girl. It ought to be laughed out of the room for saviourism – but therein lies the genius, because Waters applies such a thick layer of irony that the film in effect becomes part of the culture it is criticising. Hairspray is all about the textures – and what textures!

It’s well-known rock 'n' roll originated amongst Black artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, before being smoothed over and repackaged for white audiences; the music’s simple lyricism, cooing over holding hands, teen dance fads and broken hearts belies its links to the power relations at the heart of American pop culture. And that power imbalance is most empowered by the power of the silver screen – its luscious, disembodied portrayal of bodies moving and swaying, the smell of sweat, makeup, bad perfume and over-caffeinated runners sprinting behind the crew all invisible to us

Our introduction to The Corny Collins Show is on a small, tinny black and white TV, which Tracy and her best friend Penny (Leslie Ann Powers) dance to in the living room, the sound of their heels louder than the speakers. When Waters cuts from that tiny image to the on-set one in colour, it’s a gear shift into another world – the film’s “real” world of aesthetically perfect bodies milling together in chaste romantic gestures. This constant play between textures real and false is Waters’ masterstroke, producing a work of post-modernist pop culture that replicates and reproduces that pop culture whilst critiquing it from the inside.

Most artists end up over-gorging when they try to have their cake and eat it. Waters hits just the right balance of kitsch and sincerity, a love for the music tampered by a keen understanding of its tumultuous history. And, y’know – the goofy jokes, absurdist costuming and over-the-top performances are great, too.

Hairspray is re-released in UK cinemas on 9 June.