"Hairspray!" with New Eyes

After I'd excerpted from "Hairspray!" a bit ago, James suggested we watch it again. I love that movie. It's been at least five and probably closer to seven years since I've watched it in full.

If you've been following along, you know that my entire worldview has changed massively in the past few years, and so, while I enjoyed the movie a great deal, as usual, this time a few things popped out at me that hadn't before. I'll list them, then explain why they're problematic.

1) Although there was structural racism in the film (i.e. white kids were the norm for the music show, with black kids getting only one day every month), it was embodied in a single, nasty white woman, Velma Von Tussle.

2) When "Negro Day" (as the once-a-month black episode is called) is cancelled, it is Tracy Turnblad (white protagonist) who has the idea to march on the television station.

3) After many black folk and Edna Turnblad (Tracy's mom, also white) are arrested at the march, Wilbur Turnblad, husband/dad, bails EVERYONE out. He says it's about 20 people.

4) Little Inez Stubbs (the daughter of the host of "Negro Day," "Motormouth" Maybelle) dances on the show when Link Larkin, a white guy, brings her out onstage.

First, I want to say that when I literally googled "Is Hairspray a white savior movie" yesterday, I learned something interesting about this film. John Waters wrote it as an alternate/happy ending to a real event in Baltimore history. The Buddy Deane Show ran on local TV from 1957 until 1964. It, too, had a white cast and audience, saving once per month. A civil rights group staged a "dance in" where the show was integrated for the episode. Apparently, the producers of the show supported integration, but rather than deal with the blowback from area segregationists, canceled the show altogether. This was Waters' way of literally rewriting history.

So I know that this was written with no ill intent. The music is superb, and the tone is so hopeful; I think that is one of the things that appeals to me most. When I listened to "You Can't Stop the Beat" the other day, I was a little saddened by the line "Tomorrow is a brand new day and it don't know white from black." It's so aspirational. And we have so far to go.

Now, here is why the things I didn't even notice before are problematic:

1) Hateful racist lady: This is a character that allows us to say, "Yeah, she's awful. Good thing I'm not like that!" and basically not have to examine our own complicity in any systems that exist today that uphold racial inequality. It allows us to say, "If that's what racism looks like, I'm definitely not racist!" In that way, it absolves us as the "good white guy." We're part of the "Not all white people" crowd. In our minds. And we're not moved to challenge that thinking.

2) What are the odds, in 1963, that a 17-year-old white girl would have the idea to march as a protest before any black kids and even an adult black woman? It sort of takes away some agency and although the whole group (all black folks except for Tracy) ends up marching, it makes them seem almost passive and ignorant in asserting their own rights.

3) I can understand why Maybelle and Seaweed would need to be bailed out, but if a white dad had to bail everyone else's kids out, this says something about their parents' presence and/or ability to post bail themselves. We already know that Wilbur is a VERY good guy; this points to his better impulses, I understand. But it makes him literally their savior.

4) This is another instance where, instead of a black person being shown taking what is rightfully theirs, this gain is facilitated by a white person's invitation. Whereas that can be problematic as it's repeated in this fictionalized narrative, it also points to an important reality: White people have to be willing to risk their own privilege if things are ever actually going to change.

See, one of the things this hopeful but overly-simplified story does is pretend that once an instance of racism is toppled, everything shores up and we're all even. One of the things I found when I was googling yesterday was someone talking about how, in the movie, when the news anchor reports that "interracial dancing has broken out in the studios" all of the white people waiting outside go crazy in support of the desegregation. She pointed out that many white people would have (and did) lose their minds over this type of thing.

It's tempting to think that if we can just get people to stop having racial prejudices, that racism won't be a thing anymore. Which is one reason we want to say, "Well, I'm not racist. I treat everyone the same" and not have to work alongside our brothers and sister of color to assure that they have, in practice as well as theoretically, the same rights as we do. I keep seeing this quote repeated, and it's true: "It's not enough not to be racist. You have to be anti-racism."

I wish John Waters' vision of what could be had come to fruition. But we have not even started the work in earnest. I hear people say "Slavery happened 200 years ago, and I didn't have slaves, so why should I have to be responsible for any of this?" Thing is, slavery was just officially abolished (with the notable exception of incarcerated people, and we know that there is a disproportionate jailing of people of color) 150 years ago, and that there were laws both on the books and unofficially but enforced as recently as a few decades ago.

I think all white people should listen to the entire 14-part Scene On Radio series "Seeing White," but to clarify what I'm about to say, the episode on "White Affirmative Action" is truly an eye-opener.

What we are left with is like a Monopoly game where there are teams that switch players every 15 minutes. We've been playing for nearly an hour. Fifteen minutes ago, one member of one team admitted that the three people who'd played before him had cheated, and he was not going to cheat. That team is way ahead, though, as cheating was a successful strategy. Now a new member of the team comes in to play, and his opponent remarks that the opposing team isn't able to catch up given the unfair advantage the first team has. "What do you mean?!" the player says. "I just got here. I didn't cheat. We're on even ground now!"

But we can see, in this example, that they aren't. Why do we choose not to see this in real life? While people of color in our nation do not need (or want) a white savior, what we are required by our humanity to do is to listen, believe, and then partner with black folks to figure out how to fix the mess we made. We need to let them talk, and we need to be willing to give up things we think we earned solely on our own... which I don't think is as difficult to do when you realize that you DID have a leg up just by virtue of the color of your skin.

I know it won't be easy. Another quote I keep running up against is: When you've been in power a long time, equality can feel like oppression. I feel this deeply when we say, "There's racism against whites, too" or sigh over the fact that straight white cis-males can't get scholarships or jobs because companies have diversity mandates. We need to stop it. As long as we are defensive and refuse to acknowledge how lopsidedly our country as been constructed, meaningful change will not come.