Hairspray

Hairspray (1988) is a musical comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by John Waters and produced by New Line Cinema. Ricki Lake stars as Tracy Turnblad, with Divine, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, and Jerry Stiller rounding out the cast. Baltimore, early 1960s.

Tracy is a big girl with a bigger hairdo and a talent for dancing that nobody asked her to have. She talks her way onto the Corny Collins Show — a weekly Baltimore teen dance program filmed live — and almost immediately becomes the crowd's favourite. The problem is that the show runs segregated: Black teenagers get one day a month, everyone else gets the rest. Tracy decides that arrangement makes no sense, which puts her on a collision course with Velma Von Tussle, the show's iron-fisted gatekeeper, and her daughter Amber, who had the spotlight to herself until Tracy showed up.

Waters made a film that was cheerful on the surface and sharp underneath — a comedy about hair and dancing that kept talking about who gets to be seen. The story went on to become a hit Broadway musical in 2002 and a major studio remake in 2007 with John Travolta. Watch Hairspray (1988) online on iFILM.