Hairspray is a romantic comedy movie and musical which is based on the 1960s in Baltimore, America during the Civil Rights movement. It is a film that centres around race and the racial injustices that people faced during the time and discusses the issues associated with that. It follows Tracy Turnblad and her journey in school and explores her dreams of wanting to become famous as well as rallying against racial segregation during that time and era.
Stuart Hall identifies that there are 3 ways in which an audience can decode a meaning or message from a media product. The first one is the preferred reading, this is where the encoder’s intended meaning (the hegemonic reading) is fully understood & accepted by the audience. The second one which Stuart Hall talks about is the negotiated reading, this is where the legitimacy of the encoder’s message is adapted or negotiated to better fit the encoders own individual experiences or context and finally the third one is the oppositional reading which is where the encoder’s message is understood, but the decoder disagrees with it, reading it in a contrary or oppositional way as suggested.
As the film is based on such important issues it could be suggested that people are likely to take oppositional or negotiated readings as they may not completely agree with the ideologies of the film. Someone may take an oppositional reading if they don't agree with how the issues have been represented. They may respect the issues but they may say that they haven't tried hard enough to make this as accurate as it could be. Some reviews have suggested that it lacks depth and understanding. It is suggested that there was a lack of diversity within the creative team too so the representations may not be very balanced. For example, there is a part in the film where the main character Tracy suggests a march, people have said that she is represented as the hero of this march. Given that Tracy is a white character, many people have said that it takes away from the significance of the Civil Rights Movement and what people were actually fighting for.
Also, Hairspray's portrayal of racism is rooted in the character Velma Von Tussle, the station manager. From the start, her views are made clear that the white and black kids should be separated, and that the white kids are 'superior'. However, she is the only one who explicitly states this opinion, giving the illusion that racism is just one white lady being mean and snarky. At the end of the film, the show she is the station manager for 'The Corny Collins Show' becomes integrated. This could be argued that racism can be overcome quite easily actually which in reality isn't the case.
However, some people may take a preferred reading and acknowledge that Hairspray was written in 2002, almost 20 years ago, and it is based upon the original movie of the same name from 1988. Society, specifically white people, have started to understand racism and representation much differently than they did when hairspray was written but they may respect what the film was trying to do.
Perhaps the modern viewer can watch Hairspray and enjoy it for its catchy tunes and entertainment value, and for showing us how perceptions of equality have evolved and will continue to evolve. People may enjoy the show for such features like some of the loveable characters.
Whilst Stuart Hall's reception theory is useful to work out why the audience may not accept the intended meaning and it attempts to help us understand the reasons for this, a theory such as Gerbner's cultivation theory may be more useful to help us understand the choices made in this film. The audience at the time, when it was made in 2007 may have had their set ideologies about race and may not have been as open minded as most people are now. People in the past have typically been more set in their ways so the use of more basic or not as balanced representations may have been used because these type of representations have been used in the past and it is the way the audience has perceived the world around them at that time. However, it is definitely important to consider contexts because a modern audience are more likely to have progressive ideas about equality and may not fully agree with the storyline.
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