Hairspray: A musical named after a product that is not mentioned a lot?

In honor of the legendary actor Jerry Stiller passing away this previous Monday, this weeks Nostalgia Wednesday is dedicated to one of my favourite movies that he was in. While he was in the 1988 as well as the 2007 versions of Hairspray, for this post, I'm focusing on the 2007 version as this is my favourite one and I remember him more vividly as Mr. Pinky. Hairspray is a romantic comedy about a plump teenager Tracy Turnblad who wants to star on a dance show while also fighting to end racial segregation. The dance movies were also as iconic as the songs. And let's not forget the hair. It probably took them one can of hairspray a day to get their hair so tall and puffed out. I'm surprised they could still dance with all of the fumes that they were inhaling. Did I just get on a tangent about hairspray? Back to the movie, every single role and character were so iconic to me where I couldn't really tell you who was my favourite, as they all had a little something about them that I liked, even the evil Velma Von Tussle. But the person that I felt gave it their all was John Travolta Edna Turnblad. It was not until I've seen this film many times over the years until someone told me that was John Travolta. I did not believe them until I found out it was true. I knew that the makeup department applied a lot of different things to the actress(what I thought at the time before the truth was revealed) to get her to look like they wanted her to, but I never knew that it was a man playing her. If someone would have never told me and if we didn't have this great invention called an IMDb page, I would have still to this day thought that Edna was actress. But while this was mostly a comedy film, it also had to times of focusing on real life issues, weight shaming and racism. Tracy Turnblad had many people doubting her or not believing she could or should be on the dance show because of her weight. This was also presented in her mother, as she was more insecure about her weight than Tracy was, making it where she really did not ever leave the house. Also, during most of the film, The Corny Collins Show was segregated with white and black dancers dancing at different times, as it was called "Negro Day" for the black dancers. Racial segregation was also happening all throughout the 60s and for people like Tracy and Motormouth Maybelle to want to end it did not go well with some people. I feel that this film showed real life issues that people went through in the past, are going in the the present, and will go through in the future. This is one of the first musicals that I remember watching and will always be a musical that I will watch again.

But I cannot end this post without talking about the iconic scene the featured Jerry Stiller's character Mr. Pinky. Mr. Pinky was the owner of a boutique caring clothing meant for more plump women like Tracy. He wanted her to be his spokesgirl so that more people would know of his store and so that Tracy has clothes that make her look great. During this scene, Tracy is convincing her mother to let her do it while also trying to teach her mom to not be ashamed to how she looks and embrace the time that they live in. I always felt that this was a sweet scene between mother and daughter as usually the mom is giving the daughter confidence and not the other way around. Also who can ever forget the dresses, self confidence, and the song Welcome to the 60s!