Hairspray: A Clean Teen in a Filthy World (opens in new tab)

“Ozone Hole over Baltimore?” queries a panicky 1992 headline in the Baltimore Sun. Sure, as the article clarifies, the Maryland metropolis, eternal home base of trash icon John Waters, is no more vulnerable to ozone depletion than any other city in the Northern Hemisphere. But still, it’s fun to imagine the teenybopper hair-hoppers of Waters’ 1988 delight Hairspray contributing to an exactly Baltimore-shaped gap in the earth’s stratosphere, as with orgasmic abandon they deploy their cans of A...