Movie Nights: Hairspray

*Hairspray* traces a teenager’s bid to dance on a local TV show in early-1960s Baltimore, and how that ambition turns into a push for racial integration on live broadcast. It filters civil-rights tensions through pop rhythms and youth culture, letting comedy and conflict share the frame. The musical’s Broadway arrival in 2002 placed it in New York’s long line of socially minded crowd-pleasers, where entertainment and politics regularly meet under stage lights. Its clearest point is also its critique: visibility can be a catalyst, but it can also be a performance.