History Film / Hairspray

* DodgeballIsHell: Tracy gets knocked out by Amber with a dodgeball.

** Invoked with Edna. She forbids Tracy from auditioning for a spot on the Corny Collins Show. This is because she believes that since Tracy is overweight, she will get rejected and her feelings will get hurt. Anyone growing up in the 60s' will know how difficult it was for people who didn't meet Hollywood's standards of beauty to break into the entertainment industry.

* EngineeredPublicConfession: Velma admits to cheating to ensure her daughter the crown, to find out a camera has been on her the whole time.

* TheHeroDies: Definitely doesn't happen in the musical or the movie, but the final lines of the song "New Girl in Town" imply that the new girl mentioned in the lyrics (Tracy?) was ran over by a moving van and died:

* DeliberateValuesDissonance : Many tongue in cheek examples, particularly during "Welcome to the Sixties." Two pregnant women smoking and drinking martinis, a [[CarloadOfCoolKids carful of children standing up on the seats,]] and so on. Also, the circular pins worn by a couple of the girls, that indicated a girl was a virgin. Brenda was wearing one in the "Just nine months" scene, made even more ironic by the possibility that Corny is the father (look closely, you'll see them arguing in a Funny Background Event).

* {{Irony}}: Despite the whites-only establishments, the dancers on the Corny Collins Show enjoy to a "colored" record, namely "Shake a Tail Feather" by The Five Du-Tones..

* DarkHorseVictory: [[spoiler:Little Inez's victory in the Miss Teenage Hairspray contest. Despite not even being a candidate of the competition, she got a titalwave of phone calls from viewers who liked her dancing and she won.]]

* InterruptedIntimacy: Amber makes out with Link in her car but stop it because she notices a pimple on her chin and throws a fit.

* KickTheDog: Amber calling Tracy "shore" during the couples dances, hurting Tracy's feelings.
** Amber claiming on the news to everyone that Tracy is a human roach nest covered in roaches while Tracy is in prison and watching the TV.

* MusicalisInterruptus: When Tracy, Link, Penny and Seaweed are dancing "the dirty boogie" at Motormouth Maybelle's, Penny's mother bursts in, causing the music to stop.

* HypocriticalHumor: Most of the dancers and townspeople are racist, yet they have no problem dancing to "Shake a Tail Feather". Amber's parents call her out on this.

* {{Irony}}: Despite the whites-only establishments, the dancers on the Corny Collins Show enjoy to a "colored" record, namely "Shake a Tail Feather" by The 5 Du-Tones.

* ShakingTheRump: Tracy, Penny and the dancers on The Corny Collins Show do this to the song "Shake A Tail Feather".

-->'''Paddy Pingleton:''' Shut up! Get in the car!

* FreakOut:

* AddedAlliterativeAppeal:
"That you, Penny Pingleton, is ''permanently, positively, punished!''"

* DisproportionateRetribution: Tracy gets sent to detention because of her big hair, which she complains about to Penny during a game of dodgeball with Special Ed.
-->'''Tracy Turnblad:''' Penny, they put me in Special Ed because of my hair!

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Penny's mother Prudy telling her she is punished:

* ActorAllusion: Creator/MichellePfeiffer and Creator/ChristopherWalken have a scene where she advances on him sexily, and he tries to stop her by using practical jokes as weapons. It's a deliberate homage to the end of ''Film/BatmanReturns'', where they did the same thing as Catwoman and Max Shreck (although Walken used an actual gun in the latter).

* AutoErotica: Amber lies about Tracy doing this to her classmates, claiming she was caught inside car in the nude and that she is a shore.