Penny Lou Pingleton, you are absolutely, positively, permanently punished.
-Prudy Pingleton, Hairspray (2007)
Prudence "Prudy" Pingleton is the uptight, bigoted mother of Penny Pingleton and wife of Paddy Pingleton.
Appearance[]
Prudy's stage age is 40+. She is usually portrayed as a brunette with short hair. She dresses conservatively, often in matching skirts and jackets.
Character[]
Prudy is controlling, overbearing, and abusive towards her daughter. She keeps Penny dressed in styles that are more immature and conservative than her peers, and discourages her from dancing or listening to "race music."
Penny is often in trouble for unknown slights. Prudy punishes Penny either through humiliating her, tying her up, starving her, or psychologically manipulating her.
How cruel Prudy is varies by adaptation.
Hairspray (1988)[]
In the 1988 film, Prudy forced Penny to wear a giant red "P" on her clothes every day so that everyone will know that she is permanently punished.
She follows her daughter to Motormouth Maybelle's record store, but panics when she keeps bumping into black people. At one point, she throws all of her money at a black man and screams at him to go away, fearful that he may hurt her, despite the fact that he clearly means her no harm.
She later hires a psychologist, Dr. Fredrickson, to administer hypnosis and electroshock therapy to her daughter, who is tied to a bed, in order to convert her into liking white boys only. At one point, Prudy even orders the doctor to put her daughter in a straight jacket.
Seaweed later comes to rescue Penny from her room, but Prudy enters, forcing him to hide under her bed. When Prudy discovers him, she panics and attempts to make a "citizen's arrest," but fails. She alerts her husband, Paddy, to Seaweed's presence and Penny's escape attempt, but Paddy is unable to stop them.
As Penny and Seaweed flee, Paddy and Prudy disown Penny.
Hairspray (2007)[]
In the 2007 film, Prudy is first seen picking up her laundry from Edna Turnblad. She admonishes Edna for letting Tracy watch The Corny Collins Show, only for Edna to point out that Penny is also there watching, she's just hiding from her mother. Outraged, Prudy drags Penny from the house.
Prudy has tied Penny up in the jump rope.
After Tracy gets in trouble at the integration protests, Penny attempts to hide her in her family's basement which doubles as a bunker in case of a Soviet invasion. Prudy catches them and locks Tracy in the bunker, declaring that she is calling the police. She then tells Penny to, "get the jump rope," a punishment Penny seems very familiar with. As Prudy ties Penny to her bed, she chides her, "wait till your father gets out of prison, you'll see more than a jump rope!"
Later, Prudy is seen reading the Bible while, hypocritically, watching The Corny Collins Show. When she hears Penny's voice on the TV, Prudy looks up just in time to see her daughter and Seaweed kiss. This causes her to panic and launch herself at the television, tripping over the coffee table in the process. Prudy is last seen sobbing and scrubbing the TV in hopes that something on the TV is making Seaweed's skin darker.
Hairspray (musical)[]
As in the 2007 film, Prudy is first seen picking up her laundry from Edna. She is in this version, however, aware that her daughter is watching The Corny Collins Show with Tracy.
Prudy: Delinquents. It ain't right dancing to that colored music.
Edna: Don't be silly, it ain't colored. The TV's black and white.
In Act II, Tracy is in jail following the protests and Prudy imprisons Penny in her bedroom.
Songs[]
In some versions of the musical, Prudy breaks down and joins the dance during "You Can't Stop the Beat."
Trivia[]
- The Pingleton's bunker has Russian language books because Hairspray is set during the Cold War, when many Americans feared a Russian invasion or nuclear war.