Hair Spray 2007

The new made hair spray has almost the same story line as the old one but is presented differently. It is a musical and most part of the film is constituted with singings. I personally love musicals; however, I do not enjoy this one at all. Too many songs make this film very tedious and boring. Almost every main character in the film sings and that distracts people’s attention from the point the movie is trying to make. Moreover, there is no song in the movie that really impressed me.

Something that is very strange about this film is that it is neither camp nor normal. Some part of the movie is very unnatural but other parts seem to be serious. Most parts of the story are exaggerated but when it comes to the racial problem, the funny style suddenly changed and become serious and normal. For example, when Tracy’s mom and dad have a fight, the singings are really ridiculous but when Tracy and those African Americans are having a protest, it seems to be too serious to be a part of this kind of film. Unlike the old Hair Spray, which addresses the racial problem in a funny way, the inconsistency of the style in the new Hair Spray makes it confusing.

The new Hair Spray does change a little bit about the story, for example, Tracy does not get into the show through audition and Link does not want to go to the parade for black people at first. All those changes make this film more realistic but at the same time, make it more confusing—is it normal or unnatural? However, I don’t think those changes change a lot the way the film interact with ideology. It just makes the ideology the film tries to change clearer. Those actors say directly in the film that things need to be change--black, Chinese and fat people should have their voice out, which I think is really overdone. Brently said in his film review that “In truth, ''Hairspray'' doesn't have the same breathtaking confidence in its powers of invention. There are moments (rare ones) when it seems to lose its comic moorings to drift into repetition, and it definitely overdoes the self-help-style anthems of uplift. “

In addition, I think the new Hair Spray failed to make the characteristics of those main characters clear comparing with the old one. Penny and her mother are two very typical and special characters in the old Hair Spray. But they are not presented in the new film as well as in the old one.

http://theater.nytimes.com/mem/theater/treview.html?res=9F0CE1DA173DF935A2575BC0A9649C8B63

Hair Spray

Hair Spray is an interesting movie and it did challenge the typical gender and racial role in 1980s one way or another. However, I noticed that we have so many this kinds of movies in today’s film market and consequently, things that were created to challenge the stereotype now became the new stereotype. For example, it is a very obvious pattern in Korean soap operas and now even in Hollywood movies that beautiful skinny girls who from the upper class are always evil. Blonde became the symbol of mean girls and fat, poor but nice Cinderella always takes everything the mean girl has at the end. It does not make any sense because one’s appearance has no direct impact on his or her behavior or personality. And that is why I think this movie made a lot more sense back to 1988 than it did today.

Hair Spray used the same strategy as “Once Upon A Time in the West” and “Faat Kine” to challenge people’s ideology. It changed the role setting and put the main characters to unusual roles. For example, the leading character is a fat girl who is not considered to be pretty in the reality. However, she is a nice girl who supports the integration of black and white and she finally becomes the beautiful dance queen. Normally, the leading actress in a movie should have beautiful face, well-shaped body and good family background. However, the pretty, skinny and rich girl in this movie is a mean girl who is the enemy of the leading actress.

Although this movie tried to challenge the typical gender role in the society, overall, it did a superficial job from my point of view. The only job they did is to make a fat girl to be the main character and that is it. However, the fat girl is still a superficial girl who cares a lot about her appearance, hair style and dreams of becoming a star. She dyed her hair to be blonde, refused to change her hair style in school and read fashion magazine in class. Everything she does does not make her any difference from those stereotypes the movie wants to remove.

I think the movie did a better job to address the integration of black and white by making characters who support the integration as nice and kind and characters who reject integration as mean and racism. It also has a lot of scenes showing that black and white can have fun together. I like the humors in the movie and the romance in the movie is very interesting.  

Do the right thing

Cultural difference is something you cannot really understand until you experience it yourself. I do not understand it before I study abroad in another country and identify myself as “foreigner” for the first time. I’ve told in my communication class that it is people’s nature to view things that is different from what they are familiar with as “strange” instead of thinking that their culture may also seems “strange” from other people’s perspective. I remember that once an American asked a Chinese student: “Do you Chinese eat dogs?” and the Chinese student responded: “Do you American eat turkey? Turkey is our favorite pet in China.” Of course turkey is not our favorite pet but I think what this means is to remind people who think they are in the most civilized and prestigious culture that sometimes things you think is normal may be weird in another culture too so the only way we can get along with each other is to view people who do not like us as different instead of strange or inferior.

“Do the Right Thing” vividly pictured a black community in Brooklyn and did a great job to present us a real African American lifestyle. The typical black culture makes the only white neighborhood seems very incongruous, especially in that historical period of time. Although Sal tried so hard to get himself and his family to fit in this community, the anger African American had towards white people make all his effort in vain at the end. I was moved when I heard Sal saying that he was proud that his pizza feed those people and he enjoyed to grow old with them. At that moment I thought it is very possible for black and white to get along well, however, what happened next made me question this.

Radio Raheem’s death in the movie was an accident, the police man may be responsible for that but there is no way for all the neighbors to blame on Sal. People just found the pizza restaurant to be the only place they can give full vent to their anger. It is even more ridiculous that they tried to destroy the Koran grocery store. The Koran guy saved his store and family by telling those black men that they are the same. He is right, they are same and equal although they have different skin colors. However, the anger removed people’s wise and the violence made the peace impossible.

The first and the last shot in the movie are very interesting. The movie began with a black woman dancing aggressively. Her facial expression and her body movement expressed her anger, pain and despair. She wanted to fight against what oppressed her and that is what all African Americans want. This also explained their behavior later. At the end of the movie, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocates nonviolence, is followed by a quote from Malcolm X, which says, in effect, that nonviolence is fine, but only as long as it works. According to Canby, the movie and the quotation at the end wanted to show people that it is necessary to have a spirit to fight back when they were facing injustice. However, I still believe that violence is never a way to resolve a problem and that may be why Martin Luther King is remembered and respected by more people comparing with  Malcolm X.

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9905E5DF153AF933A15756C0A96F948260