Word: hairsprays
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...LIKELY to approve reparations for black people--not this Congress, anyway--but, just now, pop culture has fallen in love with the idea. In movies, the critically laureled Far from Heaven has a restless '50s housewife fall in love with her noble black gardener. On Broadway, the musical Hairspray is wowing 'em with its perky parable of interracial love set at a teen dance party in 1962 Baltimore. On TV, NBC's American Dreams makes Dick Clark's Bandstand a focus for the conflicted feelings whites in Philadelphia had for blacks circa...
...good movie might be made about the feelings of an African-American gardener pressured from both sides of the racial divide when a white woman becomes attracted to him; but Far from Heaven isn't it. Similarly, the blacks in Hairspray and American Dreams are mostly props for their white neighbors' learning curve. An orphan child or stray puppy would serve the same function...
...Boheme from Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann. But it also repeatedly reached back to baby-boomer-and-beyond icons (nostalgic, perhaps, for a time when you could get people to see an original Broadway show). It revived Oklahoma! and Into the Woods and Flower Drum Song. It adapted movies: Hairspray (John Waters' movie about early-'60s Baltimore), The Graduate, Marty, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It even got choreographer Twyla Tharp, for Movin' Out, to become the first person to hold the phrases Billy Joel and dance number in her head simultaneously since whatever poor sap directed the video...
...current Broadway revival of the musical recently celebrated its 2,500th performance. This new big-screen version of Chicago restores the old routine of hit Broadway musicals becoming Hollywood movies. In recent years Broadway has taken from Hollywood without giving back, turning movies like The Producers and Hairspray into splashy hit shows. By finally making its way back to the screen, Chicago helps even the score...
...YORK at the Broadway musical Hairspray...