'Hairspray'

Feel Good

We went to see Hairspray last night with youth group. It was fantastic! Even rivalling High School Musical. That really says something.

There were catchy songs, cool costumes, a host of perfect-for-teen-movie actors (re: they can't really act that well, but can smile, dance and sing happily enough). In that respect, it was great. We bopped along and smiled throughout. I did my usual thing of getting overly involved; i grinned idiotically when she got the guy, i gasped when the mother walked in on something she didn't want to see, i clapped joyfully when the winner was announced and i used the perfect opportunity to say 'we won' at the happy ending.

As well as being a feel good teen flick, there were some serious issues running as an undercurrent. There was the issue of integration, between white and black society at the time in Baltimore. I thought it was dealt with tastefully and would have done a good job of subliminally prodding the message of acceptance into the minds of the younger kids who watched it. As for the issue of accepting people who are bigger than you, on the whole it was done quite well. I had a problem with the fact that they seemed to indicate that food was the way to a pudgy person's heart... (note: i have a problem with saying 'fat'. I prefer 'pudgy', 'chubby', 'rotund', 'horizontally challenged', or any other synonym...). Also, i, as always, dislike the fact that movies that centre around accepting chubby people always make it seem like it's a bad thing that we have to learn to ignore, not an ok thing that we have to learn to accept.

Overall, however, i thought that the movie was not only cheery, colourful, catchy and dealt with the issues successfully. I loved it. So did the kids. So did Dr.B. The rest of the people with us moaned and sighed through the whole thing! Angel grimaced whenever another song came on. PB laughed at the funny bits but said he didn't like it (haha, i bet he did deep down. He said he hated Harry Potter - but he found something he liked there which made it all better!) For the record, liking movies like this does not make me childish. It just indicated that i can appreciate the cheerfulness of a feel-good movie and do just that when i'm watching it - feel good! I haven't smiled sincerely like that in a long time. I could shut out the rest of the world. I loved it.

Too drained to make it to the 18th i should've been at, i had a slice of pizza with PB and English at their place. We watched some rugby and then, over it all, i bailed. Home to bed, for a nice long sleep. The dropping of that anvil today hit me pretty hard and, in the absence of alcohol or company, it was all that i could do to pray for sleep. Which didn't even work, because my dreams haunted me. Stupid subconscious. And now, i've woken up, only to do it all again...

Annie