'Pleasantly plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.

La filla d'un, aparentment, respectable farmacèutic, viu des de l'adolescència un seguit d'experiències --seduïda, mare soltera, expulsada del si familiar, internada en un reformatori, prostituïda-- fins arribar a la seva peculiar redempció personal.

A fired teacher finds work at a girls reform school and helps a detective on a case.

A new social worker at a girls' reformatory discovers that her charges are being used by a group of ancient alchemists, who have insinuated themselves as the prison's chief staffers, to keep themselves alive and free from an insidious petrification, which is already afflicting one of their number.