The real Amber Von Tussle
When people look at me or talk about me, they all say and think the same thing, "Ooh, that Amber Von Tussle is such a spoilt brat, she gets everything that she wants". I've heard the same things once if not a million times, but the thing is, they don't know the real me. On the outside, I'm the pretty, confident young girl who can get any guy that she wants, and can get anything that she wants. But on the inside, I'm the little girl who has been through so much change in her life, she's scared of anymore change.
The only reason why I get everything that I want is because my mother wants me to have everything that she didn't have as a young girl. It was harder for her when she was my age. She's also always trying to make up for the fact that my dad died when I was just a baby.
When I got on the Corny Collins council, that's when I felt like everything was going right. I was doing something that I loved and I wanted to be famous. At school, I was the popular girl and I felt superior among the white kids. I then met Link, the gorgeous boy who had been on the show for a few months longer than myself and he was also popular in school. I knew that he had potential to go far which I guess was the main reason subconsciously that I started dating him.
When Tracy Turnblad got on the show, I was furious at the fact that she suddenly became the hot shot of the show. I mean come on she's the size of a whale, how the hell can people think that she's a good dancer. I felt even more threatened by the fact that she wanted to integrate the show and also the fact that she was after my man. Well that's how I saw it anyway. I needed to do tarnish her reputation as the hot new star on TV. Yes it may have be completely bitchy of me, but I've had to find ways of surviving in the public and private eye and that's my way of doing it.
When I saw Link going with Tracey and the Negros, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. Scared of him getting close to her and falling for her. Scared of change. I had no problem with my mother scheming to get her of the show, even if it meant breaking up her happy home with her parents. Maybe that's also why I resented her. She still had her dad around.
After Tracy went on the run after the stupid protest at the studio, I felt less threatened by her for the Miss Teenage Hairspray contest, but I couldn't shake off the fear, that I could be losing Link to her. He had changed towards me, he wouldn't take my calls or anything and when I tried to call him that same night of the protest, his dad said he had gone to find out what was going on. How could he? How could he care about her more than me? I put my concerns aside and decided to worry about it after the contest which I was bound to win with Tracy out.
On the day of the contest, I couldn't help but worry that Tracy would find a way of sneaking in. Mom had security at every door at the studio and she had the same fear as me. What if she was already in the studio waiting to out dance me, possibly with all her negro friends? That night it could have all gone wrong for me and I would never get signed. As I walked down to the stage with my arm on Link's, I held tight as if I never wanted to let him go and I felt his arm tense.
It all went the way that me and mom had feared. Tracy came into the show on the throne that I was meant to sit on when I won the competition and stole it and Link from me as he joined her for the dance. I couldn't believe it, all the hard work that I had put in, taken away from me just like that. All the effort that me and mom had put into keeping the show segregated wasted as the negros came onto the show, my crown stolen away by a girl called Inez. Mom made me mad when she told me that she switched the tallies so that I would win, which got her fired. To be honest I'd be lying, if I didn't say that I hadn't seen it coming. Everything that she has done, the lying, the cheating and the stealing, all to stop things from changing.
Now that the show is integrated, I can't say that I don't hold some resentment towards Tracy. She will still be the girl who stole Link away from me. But there is something inside of me that makes me admire her for not giving up the fight for the change and for the equal rights. Because of her, I am becoming more open-minded, no longer afraid of change and that is who I want to be.