John Waters

By Naperville Magazine
March 2025 View more Spotlight

By Jeff Banowetz

The Hairspray creator chats about his classic film

Film director John Waters was known for producing movies far outside the mainstream. His “exploitation films for art theaters,” as he dubbed them, were midnight movies meant to push the acceptable limits and shock audiences. But in 1988, his career took a big turn with his film Hairspray, a PG-rated movie about an overweight girl, Tracy Turnblad, who takes on a segregated dance show in 1950s Baltimore. The film was a modest success in theaters but grew into a cult classic over the years. It got another boost when it was turned into a Tony Award–winning musical in 2002, followed by a successful film version of the musical in 2007.

This month, Waters is visiting the College of DuPage, where he’ll host a live screening of Hairspray on March 16, followed by a Q&A. He’ll also be teaching a master class for COD students as part of the visit. (“It always makes me laugh that I’m taught anywhere,” he says.)

We had a chance to chat about the movie that continues to draw a devout following nearly four decades after it was first released.

Q: You’re going to be watching Hairspray with an audience on your visit to the College of DuPage. Is this something you’ve done before?
A: I have done it before, but only recently. I did it with different movies. I think I’ve done it with Hairspray once. And it’s kind of amazing. It’s kind of like group therapy and a pep rally. You go through the movie, and I try to tell stuff, jog my memory of where those people are today, and I give you the inside dirt. It’s like having a wisecracking patron in the theater, but I know more than anybody in the audience about the truth of what really went on.

Q: Hairspray is a departure from your previous movies. Was it a hard film to get made?
A: Every movie is a hard movie to get made. We had just made Polyester, which was a success, and it had crossed over. It wasn’t a midnight movie, and we did the whole Odorama thing. [Audience members were given a scratch-and-sniff card to reveal odors at specific times throughout the film.] Never did [the producers] say that you have to make a PG movie. In fact, they were so shocked that I made a PG movie that when we got the rating, they wanted me to put the word “shit” in it so we would get a PG-13. I said no. The shock is that it’s PG.

I never thought when I was writing it that I was writing a more commercial movie. It was just something I was obsessed with, even if it wasn’t as threatening. I’ve said a million times, it’s my most devious movie because it still plays everywhere in the world—in grade schools in Florida—everywhere. Yet there’s drag and interracial couples. Nobody ever gets mad about it because racists are so stupid, they like Hairspray. It’s the ultimate Trojan horse. It snuck in, and it’s never been hassled in any way because of the content.

Q: Is the younger generation familiar with your movie, or do they know the story more from the musical now?
A: A lot of them do know it from the musical, but I still find lots of kids that like my [movie] best. The musical is something completely different, and I thank God for it. I mean, Hairspray is one of the most joyous Broadway musicals ever, and it’s been one of the most joyous experiences of my entire life. And it won the Tony Award. How did that ever happen? You never know what’s gonna happen. How did the Academy Awards give me a museum show for eight months last year? That’s just staggering, too, so you never know. As I say, I’m so respectable I could puke.

Q: When you rewatch the movie now, do you see things you wish you’d done differently?
A: No, I don’t see that. It’s a time capsule to that time. I think it’s fun that the villain is saying such nasty things. You don’t have to make the villain be politically correct in her nasty comments…It’s more than about integration in a way. I think Tracy stands for every outsider, gay people, girls, women, overweight people, white kids, Black kids, every kind of outsider. She stands for them, and that’s why it does well all over the world.

Photo: Greg Gorman