Hairspray

It isn't that I do not pay attention or even that I am clueless and not up to date.  It is just that sometimes I have no interest in the topic or happening.   If someone were to ask me, prior to a recent Saturday spent watching the telly, what I knew about the play or the movie 'Hairspray', I would have answered that I thought it was about someone named 'Edna' who ran a beauty shop.  OK.  I'll wait while you finish laughing....

Do not ask me how I formed that conclusion.  I guess I just put the title and a character's name together and 'voila', a plot line.  Well, I was not even close. 

I grew up in Detroit and after school we had our own Detroit Bandstand to watch.  My locker buddy in school moved here from Philadelphia in 1956 and I endured all of her 'yapping' about how wonderful American Bandstand was all the way through high school.

Well, I ended up enjoying both versions of the film.  The 1988 film used contemporary songs from 1962, the year the movie depicts.  The 2007 version used music written for the stage musical. 

But it is the story that takes place in the TV show and community that is still so striking today.  The integration of all aspects of our lives.  Recently we found out from census statistics that Detroit is the most segregated city in the United States.  It is sad when you think of it.  But look further into the statistics and you find that Detroit's population is so highly segregated because of the flight of everyone who could go, went, whether they were black, white or any other ethnic or cultural group.  We have a city that no one wants to live in if they have a choice to live elsewhere.  Fix the city, fix the some of the segregation problem.  IMHO