I mentioned in the article I wrote about Annie that I listen to musical soundtracks on road trips, and one of those soundtracks happen to be Hairspray. The 2007 version with Troy Bolton and Catwoman. This is a movie that touches on race and body image and doing what you want in spite of what others think, but I’m not here to talk about any of that. I’m here to take a look at the very horny song sung during the latter half of the film.
Now you might be thinking that the song “I Can Hear The Bells” is just as if not hornier than “Without Love”, but when you add in the visuals it’s not even a competition. Now I won’t be breaking down this song line-by-line, I’ll just be focusing on key moments in song and/or on screen.
Let me give you a quick background on what happened right before this song: After a protest march against discrimination ends with a white girl assaulting a cop and getting all the black people arrested the white girl runs away to her best friend’s house and gets locked in the basement by her best friend’s mom while the best friend gets tied up in her room meanwhile the white girl’s crush goes to the white girl’s parents’ house to see if she is alright and we discover that white girl’s dad bailed all the black people out and now a black guy who likes the white girl’s best friend is about to break the white girl’s best friend out of her house. That’s around ten minutes of plot condensed into one long sentence.
Now that you know the immediate plot it’s time for me to better describe the characters.
White Girl = Tracy Turnblad, a large girl who likes to dance that is constantly hated on by other white folk because she’s cool with negroes and big-boned. She has a crush on Link.
Best Friend = Penny Lou Pingleton, Tracy’s slim best friend who isn’t a dancer and always has a lollipop in her mouth. She has a crush on Seaweed and her mother is super religious.
White Girl’s Crush = Link Larkin, lead singer/dancer of the Corny Collins show. Definitely has a girlfriend but is slick tryna holla at Tracy on the side which isn’t right.
Black Guy = Seaweed Stubbs, a great dancer who is constantly in detention at school. Like every school scene we see him in he’s in detention. Has a crush on Penny.
Those are all the characters that have a singing part; now let’s get to the song!
“Tracy I’m in love with you no matter what you weigh”
Link has the first verse all by himself and that line up there is how he ends it. Note at that this point in the movie he is still dating Brittany Snow and we have no onscreen confirmation that they’ve broken up. Also as he is singing this he’s walking around Tracy’s bedroom and touching her stuff while her mom cooks him some food. So that’s weird.
“Living in the ghetto black is everywhere you go”
“Why are you digging into this lyric Benjamin? What’s the problem?” It’s not the lyric itself I’m dissecting; it’s what was happening while this was sung. While singing this Seaweed pulls out a pocket knife and presses the button to pop the blade out. When the blade pops out Penny’s eyes get big and she goes “Mmhm”. Ma’am please, this man pretty much just broke into your house to free you and this is while he’s black in the 60’s. It is not the time or place for any of that.
“But now I’ve tasted chocolate and I’m never going back”
Penny says this to Seaweed right before the next scene, which is both of them climbing out her window. We’ve already addressed how Penny needs to focus on the task at hand and not be as distracted as she clearly is. And nowadays we know that referring to someone’s skin color using food is in poor taste(heh), but this just shows us where Penny’s mind is at.
Mr. Still-In-A-Relationship Larkin sings this line while eating leftover food in Tracy’s room. This man was functioning just fine beforehand so I don’t know what he’s talking about. And why would you eat food that someone else left in their room? You barely supposed to eat open air kitchen food; you definitely not supposed to eat raw air bedroom food!
“If I’m left without my baby doll I don’t know what I’ll do”
I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen this movie in a number of years so my recollection might be fuzzy but I don’t remember Link and Tracy having any sort of moment beforehand so why is she so horny for him now? Is it because she’s feeling the vibes from Seaweed and Penny? Also she’s singing this from the trunk of the car because she is a fugitive.
“Link, I’ve got to break out so that I can get my hands on you”
I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen this movie in a number of years so my recollection might be fuzzy but I don’t remember Link and Tracy having any sort of moment beforehand so why is she so horny for him now? Is it because she’s feeling the vibes from Seaweed and Penny? Also she’s singing this from the trunk of the car because she is a fugitive.
“And girl, if I can’t touch you then I’m gonna lose control”
This is the line that inspired me to write this article. By itself the line is aggressively horny but it becomes wilder when you look at the situation it was sung in. The car with Seaweed, Penny, Tracy in the trunk, and three of Seaweed’s friends have been pulled over by the cops and the feds are looking through the window with flashlights.
Seaweed is in the backseat with Penny in the middle on the floor covered in a blanket and his friend is on the other side. Saying this in a car with three non…participants? Bystanders. Saying this in a enclosed space with three other bystanders is already egregious but Seaweed was physically shaking when he sung this which just emphasizes how badly he needs a cold shower.
“Life is like my mother on a diet!”
This line is just foul. Everybody out here vibing(albeit very hornily) and Tracy decides to send a shot at her mom’s weight problems. It’d be different if her mother was villainous, but Tracys mom don’t be causing no problems! Why’d she have to catch a stray?
This song ends with them dancing in Motormouth Maybelle’s(Seaweed’s Mom) record shop. After loudly singing and stomping all over the place for some odd reason Maybelle wakes up! She asks what they doin and blah blah blah, she tells Seaweed and Penny that they are an interracial couple in the 60’s so it’s gonna be big rough for them and then other plot stuff happens.
Now I didn’t mention everything that happened during this song because that would’ve taken too long; but if you go back to watch this you’ll notice some smaller details. If you’ve never seen this movie I recommend that you do, it’s pretty good. If you HAVE seen this movie I know that you’ve thought about these things too. These were some horny teens.
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