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Quotes

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?

Mistakes

When the song "I Know Where I've Been" has finished and the crown is chanting, the position of Edna's arm that holds the white purse, changes between shots. See more...

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. See more...

Mistake pictures

Movie Mistakes blog

Hairspray (2007) - 3 questions

starring John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah (add more)

Genres: Comedy, Musical, Romance

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Questions

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.

Edit

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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, and those who did were famous rock-and-roll musicians. Now as for Doris Day, by 1962 she was a 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 right. So the words "without love, life is Doris Day at the Apollo", means life would just not be right at all without love.

Edit Answered by lmao

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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!

Edit Answered by Movie_Freak<3

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