"You've met my mother?"

Katie and I went to see "Hairspray" tonight. We walked in late as Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) belted out, "I Love You Baltimore". The film is truly odd, but it was too much work to try and dislike it.

The characters weren't really highly developed, but they were incredibly likable. The songs weren't as smooth as they might have been (most of the lines are in there, not because they make sense - but because they rhyme), the quirkines made me smile.

On the other hand...Tracy gets sent to detention after her rejection from the pretty white skinny kids and finds out that dention is where the black people party. At first there's some tension, but when she proves that she too can dance in sexually provocative manner, the black kids all accept her.

What? That's it? Sexy dancing equals integration?

In the end it gets lost in the bigger issue of inequality. Tracy is innocently appalled that black people and white people can't dance together. Penny (Amanda Bynes), Tracy's naive friend with an oppresive mother, doesn't seem to notice much at all except that Seaweed is hot and her mother is unreasonable.

Corny Collins (James Marsden), host of the Corny Collin's Show, just thinks that integration is the next big thing and that if "you can't fight, it you might as well rock it."

But of course the evil blondes are trying to keep black and/or fat people off of tv at any price. And while both the black people and the fat people are portrayed as being willing to give it away any moment, it is the blondes who get frowned at for the same feeling, which was confusing more than anything. Sexuality is good - except for when mean people have it?

Again, what?

The movie was fun, enjoyable, makes you happy and even makes you want to dance...just don't ask it to make sense.