Remake of ‘Hairspray’, by John Waters, with Pfeiffer and Travolta.
The 1988 John Waters film, ‘Hairspray, ’60s fever‘(‘ Hairspray ‘), has a Broadway musical adaptation that has won 8 Tony Awards in 2003 including Best Musical. The libretto is by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, the music by Marc Shaiman and the lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.
Now there will be a remake directed by Adam Shankman and produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. The production company will be New Line Cinema. The cast will be made up of Michelle Pfeiffer, Billy Crystal, John Travolta and Queen Latifah.
The original film, a plea for integration, was set in the 1960s, which allowed Waters to present a collection of catchy songs. It featured Divine, Ricki Lake, Michael St.Gerard, Jerry Stiller, Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Deborah Harry, Ric Ocasek, Leslie Ann Powers, Clayton Prince, Mink Stole, Pia Zadora. ‘Hairspray’ (hairspray) tells the story of Tracy Turnblad, a pleasantly plump teenager who achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins dance television show. Now that she is a youth heroine, she begins to use her fame to speak for the cause she believes in: integrating everyone. In doing so, she earns the rage of the show’s previous star: Amber Von Tussle, as well as her parents, who are highly manipulative and pro-segregating. The rivalry reaches a climax when Amber and Tracy battle for the title of Miss Automobile Fair 1963.
After seeing Rosa triumph in ‘Mira who dances’, Spanish viewers will not be surprised by the plot of this film. These kinds of heroes / losers seem to like them everywhere.
John Travolta will play the role that Divine played in the Waters version, that is, Edna Turnblad, the mother of the protagonist, so she should cross-dress. The character that Pfeiffer will have, in his day the singer of Blondie Deborah Harry had it. It is about Velma von Tussel, mother of the rival of the protagonist and former queen of the parties (Miss Baltimore Crab), who lives anchored in the past and who is the producer of the dance show. Motormouth Maybelle was Ruth Brown before Queen Latifah. The chubby girl in the lead, named Tracy Turnblad, will be Nikki Blonsky in the Ricki Lake booth. Amanda Bynes (‘She’s the Boy’) will be Tracy’s best friend. Billy Crystal would be in Jerry Stiller’s place as the father of the chubby ballerina.
As miarroba points out, John Waters occupies a privileged place among the most significant countercultural icons in the history of cinema. Born in 1946 in Baltimore (USA), the city where he has shot all his films, the creator of ‘The Mommy Murders’ and ‘Hairspray’, among other titles, has built his career as a director on the foundations of culture ‘trash’ (garbage); violence, bizarre sex – too often grotesque – and dirty have become the fundamental tools with which this cult filmmaker operates.
Waters has taken the chair with the design and construction of eccentric and quirky characters. He has recognized on more than one occasion that his thing is to “shoot genre satires” and, in this sense, his narrative and visual style is accompanied by a stamp of authenticity. With a curriculum full of ‘junk movies’, the American director lowered his usual dose of grotesque to film ‘Hairspray’, a comedy about the youth of his country, but he has never lost his identity and has never stopped making fun of the miseries of American society.
Scourge of traditional clichés and a lover of transgression, Waters made an advertisement years ago for theaters in the United States, recalling that “no smoking in theaters”. He could not think of anything else than to appear on the screen savoring a cigar while explaining to the public that he could not do the same no matter how much he wanted to.
