February 25, 2005

Vincent Vega Is My Mom

Today came the really disturbing news that John Travolta is in talks to star as Edna Turnblad in the upcoming film version of the Broadway musical “Hairspray,” which is itself a remake of John Waters’ 1988 non-musical film.

There are two reasons I don’t like this: one, the role was originated on Broadway by Harvey Fierstein, and as long as Divine is dead, Harvey’s the man for the role.* And two, the thought of Travolta in drag, singing, is just too frightening to contemplate. If he takes this role, he can never play Chili Palmer again.

(*The role of Edna is traditionally played by a man in drag; when I saw the show on Broadway with Fierstein two years ago, the Southern tourist behind us turned to his wife at the end of the first act and said “wait a minute- that’s a man!”)

Posted by Stephen Silver at February 25, 2005 12:53 AM
Comments

OMG. This is disturbing. I just saw Hairspray with Bruce Villanch playing Edna, and that was disturbing enough...

I should have known better than to read this right before going to sleep.

Posted by: Esther at February 25, 2005 01:33 AM

i agree. Harvey needs the work. He is soo funny, everyone needs to see it. John Travolta unfortunately is a frekin weirdo. He is a Christian Scientologist and I saw him on Letterman last night and he admitted he has a weird family...

Posted by: A at February 25, 2005 11:03 AM
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