IndieFest Outdoor Movie Night: John Waters’ “Hairspray” | McCoppin Plaza

Submitted by the Event Organizer

SF Indie’s Outdoor Summer Movies in McCoppin Plaza | SF

Bundle up, bring a warming beverage (and a flask) and enjoy some outdoor cinema at SF IndieFest’s bi-monthly free outdoor film series at McCoppin Hub (McCoppin at Valencia).

They’ll have fun family friendly flicks for free every first and third Thursday all summer long in 2015.

2015 Schedule

• July 2: Better Off Dead
• July 16: Ghostbusters
• August 6: The Princess Bride
• August 20: Weird Science
• September 3: The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension
• September 17: Airplane
• October 1: Hairspray
• October 15: Beetlejuice

The McCoppin Hub Plaza opened in August of 2014, transforming this former cul-de-sac into a vibrant and active new public gathering space. The plaza serves as a community gathering hub hosting music, food and cultural events.

Thursday, October 1, 2015
SF Indie’s Outdoor Summer Movies in McCoppin Plaza | SF

Writer-director John Waters treats the message movie as a genre to be parodied, just like the teenpic. Combining the two, he comes up with an entertainingly imbecilic musical comedy—a piece of pop dadaism. Waters doesn’t try to transform the sappy fun of pop into art; he loves it for itself. He’s a twenty-year veteran of the midnight-movie circuit; his affection for bad taste is no sham.

In “Hairspray,” the spherical Mrs. Edna Turnblad (played by the male actor Divine) and her baby-blimp daughter, Tracy (Ricki Lake), come out of the Hefty Hideaway wearing mother-and-daughter dresses and walk down the street with their bosoms proudly preceding them. It’s Baltimore, but they’re like floats in the Mardi Gras. Their snazzy new outfits didn’t cost them anything: the proprietor of the shop has just asked Tracy to model for him. She’s the newest celebrity in town: each day, right after high school, she goes to appear on “The Corny Collins Show,” where she and the other hotshot teen-age dancers do novelties like the Pony and the Roach. It’s 1962: Chubby Checker time, “Mashed Potatoes” time; the kids at the hop do the Madison. Tracy’s celebrity status doesn’t help her at school, though: the boy seated behind her can’t see past her wide, newly “feathered” coiffure, and she’s charged with “hairdo violations” and put in a class for slow learners and problem kids. That’s where she gets to learn some new dance steps from Seaweed (Clayton Prince), whose mother, Motormouth Maybell (Ruth Brown), is a rhythm-and-blues disk jockey. When Tracy discovers that black kids aren’t allowed on “The Corny Collins Show,” she becomes a leader in the fight for integration.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.