Joining the 21st Century

Friends-
I've bent to peer pressure and started a blog. As I writer, I guess its my duty. So herewith I will be posting some of my essays, wild musings and generally things that amuse or irritate me.
Feedback always welcome.

A whole lotta ugly from a whole bunch of stupid

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Recently, a controversy has been raging over the new musical film version of the fairly new Broadway musical of the old non-musical film version of Hairspray. Who says America doesn’t recycle?For the vehicle that began as an edgy John Waters movie, then made a huge splash on Broadway and is now at your local multi-plex, its been quite a ride.
But following an opening shot from the Washington Blade , which seeped into the nation’s blogosphere, there has been a dispute between a variety of gay spokespeople, official and otherwise, over the casting of John Travolta as Edna Turnblad in this latest Hairspray. The Blade editor wrote that gays should boycott the movie specifically because Travolta is a Scientologist. Responding, John Waters defended Travolta as a joy to work with, a fantastic actor, and not in any way anti-gay.
(Disclaimer: I think Travolta has done some pretty decent film work, but his connection to Scientology, with their much publicized intolerance toward gay people and prescription medications bothers me and tars and feathers Travolta in my eyes. Then there’s the maybe-he-is-or-maybe-he isn’t-a homo aura to his personal life. But neither the actor’s acting chops, nor his choice to stay in the closet if he is a homo, plays much of a role in my feeling about this particular dispute.)
The Travolta clash morphed from a discussion of whether a Scientologist should play Edna, to a secondary dispute regarding the history of the story and the gender of the actor who has, in the past, been cast as rotund Edna Turnblad. Edna is Rotund Tracy’s mother, and Tracy dances her way into the hearts of 1960s Baltimore and simultaneously manages to integrate the town.
If you are not a Hairspray groupie, in the original John Waters film Edna was played by portly drag queen Divine, who starred in Water’s early, really edgy, well, very edgy, kinda disgusting films. But 1998’s Hairspray introduced Divine (and Rikki Lake as Tracy) to all manner of mainstream households through Water’s very sweet movie. It was funny, had a message, and no one did any of the revolting things they did in the earliest Waters films. (Google Polyester or Pink Flamingoes). One of Waters’ films was called Pecker, and despite its nasty title was a charmer. I adored writing a review with the headline “I loved John Waters’ Pecker.”
Following in Divine’s considerable footsteps came iconic gay actor Harvey Fierstein to play Edna in the Broadway musical Hairspray. He was fat, raspy-voiced and absolutely charming as Edna, with his gay icon pedigree adding to the excitement.
While nothing in the Hairspray script ever says Edna is a drag queen, and nothing is intended to denote any homosexual storyline, the original film and subsequent musical always had an elusive gay sensibility. Although Harvey Fierstein readily admits he was just playing the role of a woman, much as Travolta said he was doing in a recent interview, lots of folks have their knickers in a knot because the casting of Travolta robs the new film of its undocumented and somewhat ethereal gay sensibility.
Originally, because of my admitted prejudice against Mr. Travolta and partially because I didn’t spend much time thinking about the subject, I too, was pissed that Harvey or another out-of-the-closet actor was overlooked for the new Hairspray in favor of the Grease-y Travolta.
Well, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
I saw the movie last night and I am still smiling. Travolta is a very sweet, exceptionally funny Edna.
More importantly, whatever gay sensibility was lost to casting is still alive and well everywhere in the film. Yes, the story is about racial prejudice in the 1960s and yes, yes, yes, Tracy scandalizes the town by integrating not only the barely fictitious Corny Collins TV show (Baltimoreans, remember the Buddy Dean Show?) but all of a barely fictitious Baltimore as well. Tracy manages this by socializing with her “African American” friends. I use the quotation marks because in the film, Corny Collins allows those friends to dance on his TV show a once a month for Negro Day.
At the film’s first mention of Negro Day, there was a palpable sense of embarrassment in the theatre. If people didn’t actually suck air, their faces felt hot as they remembered how horribly this country treated African Americans just a short time ago. Of course, I wouldn’t call our nation’s current race relations hunky-dory (or should I say honky-dory?) but at least it’s no longer acceptable to openly discriminate - and the U.S. Government no longer officially codifies prejudice with state-sponsored discrimination against African Americans.
But wait! In exactly the same way as the citizens and government maltreated African Americans in Hairspray (and for real) gays and lesbians are now being maltreated.
Ba-da-bing! This movie has gay sensibility written all over it.
Trust me, the musical is hilariously funny, with great choreography, joyous music, and laugh out-loud comedy schtik. There are awesome performances from the entire cast, including a surprise turn from Michelle Pfeiffer. Attention lesbians: if you swooned over her as she slithered across the grand piano in The Fabulous Baker Boys, her character here is not as alluring!
But apart from the terrific entertainment, the truth is, when I saw a candlelight march on screen, led by Queen Latifah and John Travolta, it was hard not to think, for just a minute, about that San Francisco vigil after Harvey Milk was shot, and the one in Wyoming after Matthew Shepherd died. It reminded me of the marches we have made along Pennsylvania Avenue, chanting for our rights.
Hairspray is about intolerance, and since gays are the current and officially sanctioned piñata for intolerant people, I can only hope for a day when we get our Hairspray moment. I want people in a movie theatre to get queasy, flinching when they hear how inequitably the nation treated gay people back in 2007.
As the inimitable Queen Latifah explains to a white teenager and her black boyfriend, “you’ve got to get ready to face a whole lotta ugly from a whole lotta stupid.”
Well I’m afraid that gays are going to face a lump of ugly from a gang of stupid in the 2008 elections. I’m praying for an enlightened victor. And I hope our wait for equality and tolerance doesn’t take more than half a century.
But in the meantime, let that Saturday night fever overtake you and go see Hairspray. You’ll smile from start to finish, laugh a whole lot and feel good all over when the lights come up.
It’s a great to watch a whole lotta stupid get their just rewards.