Hairspray: Adam Shankman

I chose this film this week because we were having a movie marathon at my friend's over the weekend, and as Hairspray is one of my favourite films, I thought that it would be interesting to look at analytically.

Hairspray is the film of the West End/Broadway musical, which was based on a film itself. It revolves around telling the story of Tracy Turnblad, an overweight high school student with dreams of dancing on the town-famous Corny Collins Show, and how she achieves that dream at a time when segregation was widely accepted and even encouraged by some in Baltimore.

Mise-en-scène was a major part of this film. The settings and the lighting were used to show the differences in conditions for the people we see in the film. We only really see five major places throughout the film:

• Tracy's house
• Penny's house
• Motormouth Maybelle's record shop/home
• The School

There's a great difference in the locations to show the audience the level of difficulty that each character faces. Penny is in the best social situation of them all, as she is thin, blonde and pretty, and she has a Christian mother who hates integration, and this is reflected in her room. It is light, well furnished, well decorated and cleaned. Interestingly, she also seems to have several sets of curtains. This could reflect how her mother is trying to shield Penny from any world that she does not approve of.

The next place on the scale is the school, with a diverse range of rooms - the classroom in which Tracy has history is white and clean, as that is the class that the kids from the TV show - Link and Amber included - are in, and they are the most privileged teens that we meet. The detention room, however, is dirtier, busier and generally less well kept, because it is frequented by the black youth due to the teachers' racism. Tracy's house is just below the school, with dark green paint on the walls and a rather cramped layout, leaving little room for the larger ladies of the house to move around it. This reflects problems created not only due to Tracy's size, but also her full support of integration.

This leaves the residence of Motormouth Maybelle. Dimly lit, dusty and dirty, it reflects the situation of its inhabitants, who are all black. When Tracy, Penny and Link are there, they are lit normally, clearly showing that the low-lighting is relevant to the struggles that the black people have.

I noticed that with the majority of the songs, the track came in, growing in number of instruments, complexity and volume as the characters were still speaking. This made the songs seem a more natural progression of the narrative, rather than just beginning somewhat randomly.

My focus scene would have to be the first time we see the Corny Collins show (Youtube link here). As the backing track begins, the camera alternates between short shots of Tracy's foot tapping and the clock ticking, all of this in time with the music we hear beginning in the background. The bell rings, and the shot switches from one of the school to one in the studio, where a similar sound is heard as the people on the show prepare to begin. We then alternate between short shots of Tracy and Penny trying to get home to watch the show and the show's cast preparing for it, all as the music grows, building tension. As Tracy and Penny get into the living room of Tracy's house, the show begins, and at first we hear it as if it is coming through the TV set. Then the camera zooms in on the black and white image on the screen, and when we zoom out again, we are in the studio, looking at the black and white screen of one of their cameras, providing a great transition into the show. The camera zooms out further to a wide shot, showing all of the dancers of the Corny Collins show. As the song progresses, we get close-ups of Amber, who we had not properly met before, but is established through these close up and long shots, emphasising her pushing and mistreatment of the other dancers (and in turn their negative view of her) as a bad character. The camera switches between shots of the studio and shots in Tracy's living room. Interestingly, when we go back to Tracy's living room, the sound quality continues to be that of the studio, rather than reverting back to that of the TV set, giving the impression that Tracy feels very much part of the show standing in her living room. Tracy is shown to be the same as the people on the set, but in harder conditions through the colours of the rooms. The set is a bright green colour, showing how the people on the show are in a much better position that Tracy is attempting to implicate, but not to the same effect.

The interior of Tracy's house during the Nicest Kids in Town Scene

The set of the Corny Collins show, with it's much brighter walls

At the end of the scene, Edna (Tracy's mother, played by John Travolta) is introduced. An upwards panning shot is used for maximum impact, as most people knew that John Travolta was playing Edna, but would not have seen him in the full drag costume until this point. This shot also adds importance to her character that her words do not, as simply asking that the girls turn down the TV so that she can iron is not the first thing that an audience expects to hear from a major character.