Shankman, A. (Director). (2007). Hairspray. [Motion Picture]. Los Angeles, CA: New Line Cinema.
In the 1960s, Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager, loves to dance and watch the Corny Collins Show (similar to the iconic American Bandstand). Every day after school, Tracy and her best friend, Penny, race home after school to watch the show and dream about the show’s hot main dancer, Link. After a dancer leaves the Corny Collins show, Tracy sees it as an opportunity to audition for the show. Tracy realizes how unfair the show’s policy is: African American students couldn’t dance on the show more than once a month, on the segregated “Negro Day.” Hairspray has many examples of oppression, prejudice, and discrimination. The movie explores racism, as well as size-ism or weight-ism and classism.
See the Hairspray Study Guide, based on the Field Guide for Teachers produced by StageNOTES, Camp Broadway LLC, New York, for the original Broadway production (2002), available from http://education.theatreworkout.com/resources/Hairspray_Study_Guide.pdf