The answer to your question is easy, but it raises another, more difficult one, which the famously difficult writer-director John Waters always refused to answer directly.

John Travolta was cast as Edna Turnblad, the main character's mother, in the 2007 remake of "Hairspray" because the role has always been played by a man in drag, starting with the original 1988 film, in which the role was played by famed drag queen Divine.

However, Waters, the writer and director of the original film, was never entirely clear on why he cast a drag queen in the first place.

The famed Hollywood weirdo came closest to answering in an interview with the online entertainment magazine Examiner.com just a few months ago.

"The reason the character of Edna is always played by a man is because the characters don't think she is a man. It's a secret the audience shares but the characters do not."

It seems that Waters didn't want to answer the question directly because he didn't want it to be a question at all.

He pointed out in a 1988 interview with NPR that early reviews of the film didn't even mention the fact that the role was being played by Divine, a male actor, "which I think is good because he's not a transvestite. He doesn't wear those clothes when he's not making a movie. You can't even call him a drag queen. What self-respecting drag queen would allow himself to look as hideous as he looks at the beginning of 'Hairspray'? So he's basically, he's a character actor."

There's also the fact that Waters had cast his longtime friend in all but one of his previous feature films, occasionally (as in 1970's "Multiple Maniacs" and 1972's "Pink Flamingos") building the entire film around Divine's larger-than-life persona.

When the 2007 "Hairspray" remake came around, new producer Neil Meron said simply he was following "tradition" by casting Travolta -- not a professional female impersonator, but simply an actor.

"John Waters never conceived of the role as a drag role ... The only tradition is that a man play the role of Edna."

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