Writer-director John Waters has a cult following as a counterculture master of trashy, high-camp humor. His low-budget film “Hairspray,” released in 1988, earned him a significantly broader audience. It’s a reflection of 1960s America, when teenagers were glued to television dance shows and the racial divide was as black and white as our TV screens. The pressure to be slim was so intense that a cigarette brand was named after it.
Waters ran with the…