Hairspray

What you really want to watch There are certain films and shows that resonate with audiences everywhere–they generate discussion and debate about everything from gender, class, citizenship and race to consumerism and social identity.  This new "teachable canon" of film and television introduces students to alternative classics that range from silent film to CSI. Hairspray′s main character is a 300–pound actor and drag performer, Divine, who not only satirizes myths of gender and maternity, but whose excessive, unruly presence exudes a radical cultural politics. John Water′s 1988 camp classic is an iconic film that occupies a unique place in the popular imagination, in film studies, and with youth audiences everywhere. Hairspray offers a multi–leveled critique of the American social body, and the contradictory politics of race, sex, gender, class, and culture that underwrite its national mythologies. In this new exploration of the film – which includes original interview material with John Waters – Dana Heller engages readers in thought–provoking discussions about topics ranging from camp and queer theory to gender performance and the body; from debates over postmodern style vs. substance to fandom in popular culture and the history of the American film musical.

List of Figures. Acknowledgments. Introducing Hairspray . 1 The Roots. 2 Tangled Genres: The Teenpic Gets a Makeover. 3 Hair with Body: Corpulence, Unruliness, and Cultural Subversion. 4 Highlighting History: Hairspray′ s Uses of Popular Memory. 5 More Than 20 Years and Still Holding: The Many Lives of Hairspray . Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Dana Heller is Professor and Chair of English at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She has written widely about elements of popular culture, gay and lesbian studies, consumer culture, television, and almost all things considered "bad" taste.