Hairspray

Answer: I believe her hair is also symbolic of white and black integration.

Chosen answer: It's common for filmmakers to subtly alter a character's appearance throughout the film to reflect how the character changes. In this case, as Tracy comes out of her shell, her personality becomes brighter, stronger, and more pronounced, and that is shown by her increasingly lighter hair.

raywest

Question: One of the lines in "Without Love" states that "Without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo". What does that mean?

Answer: First I need to explain that the Apollo Theater, an amazing music venue, is in upper Manhattan (NYC), in the predominantly black neighborhood of Harlem. The movie 'Hairspray' takes place in 1962, and at that point in time very few white musical artists had performed at the Apollo (between 1950s and early 60s), and those who did were famous rock-and-roll musicians, such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957). Now as for Doris Day, by 1962 she was a lovely popular American actress/singer, who, as the saying goes, was "as white as white bread", and to imagine someone like Doris Day appearing on stage at the Apollo Theater is an amusing incongruity and just not quite right. So the words "without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo," means life would just not be right at all without love.

Super Grover

Thank you. My director is making our cast look up stuff we don't know. So as Penny I felt like I needed to know so thank you for cleaning that up for me.

I hope you have fun playing Penny, and that your entire cast and crew enjoy putting on your stage production of Hairspray. Break a leg, sweetie.

Super Grover

Question: At the end, right at the beginning of the song "Hairspray" at the pageant, Amber turns to Link and whispers, "Look, there's the agents" and it cuts to a few suit-wearing people with clipboards. My mom and I noticed that one of the women among them looked like Ricki Lake. Is it her, in a cameo? It would seem to make sense since she was in the original movie.

Answer: Yes, that is Ricki Lake, the original Tracy Turnblad, in a cameo appearance!

Movie_Freak 1

Question: Why didn't Tracy's parents free her from school when they knew that she was going on audition? And why isn't Penny in detention? I don't think that her mother would free her from school.

Answer: Tracy's parents told Tracy not to audition. They were worried that she would be rejected, and not be able to cope with the heartbreak, as evidenced by her mothers' line, "They're gonna hurt her out there". Penny could have left school during her lunch period.

Answer: Yes, Tracy's parents should have signed her out for the audition. Penny has been getting away from her mother for awhile so her cutting school without trouble isn't new to her.

Continuity mistake: During the scene with the picture of the teacher with breasts. Link's and Amber's seats move. Link's seat is behind the desk and then its in front moving Amber's seat over towards the center of the desk.

Michael Piscitelli

More mistakes in Hairspray

Motormouth Maybelle: [to Seaweed and Penny.] Oh, so this is love? [She pauses and then smiles.] Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid.
Penny Pingleton: [Totally serious.] So, you've met my mom?

More quotes from Hairspray

Trivia: As for John Travolta playing Edna Turnblad, that goes back to John Waters having often cast 'Divine' in his movies. 'Harris Glenn Milstead' was an actor best known for performing in drag as 'Divine', John Waters cast him as Edna in the 1988 version. When the Broadway musical was being cast, they cast Harvey Fierstein as Edna Turnblad, and started a tradition of casting a man in the role of the mother, so the movie is just keeping that tradition going.

More trivia for Hairspray

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.