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Grease is a classic. It’s a part of everybody’s childhood who was born in the seventies and from that point on. It’s not hard to see why: a simple love-story, innocent 50’s setting and a very catchy and thus popular soundtrack. Grease is just a plain fun movie, but when looking at it now it’s also a movie that will be considered a bad influence on children…
Let’s face it, the movie is full of bad influences. There’s the scene where all the Pink Ladies are having some sort of slumber party. First Sandy, who doesn’t smoke, is pushed into trying it and so we get an education on how to smoke. Next comes the alcohol and once again it’s promoted as something you need to drink to be cool. One of the girls then shows off to Sandy that she has about a dozen different boyfriends.
So Girls: drink, smoke and fuck 10 different guys at the same time and you can consider yourself to be cool.
Well before the party is over Rizzo goes out and offers herself to one of the T-Birds. This leads to the scene where she’s having sex with Kenicky on the back seat of his car. Unprotected. Kenicky does have a rubber but it’s been in his wallet since he was 13 or something… never used, so it breaks instantly. It’s a wonder that thing didn’t vaporize. Now judging by the condom-fact Kenicky is either a virgin or his previous sexual encounters where also unprotected. He probably forgot his wallet on those occasions. Both scenarios are rather dubious: or the guy’s first time is on the back seat of his car with the town slut without protection or the town slut just fucks a random male-slut without protection. Diseases should be flying all over the place…
Turns out Rizzo is ’only‘ pregnant. Well she just concludes that after being late… but that’s enough to just tell it to someone and in a funny and nice choreographed scene the entire town is informed of the news. So before doing a test (dunnow of they had those in the 50’s) or going to the doctor (I’m pretty sure they those) you first tell someone so the word is out on the street. In the end we get a scene where Rizzo is shouting that she’s not pregnant so the same way everybody got the info about her being pregnant they receive the intel on her not being pregnant. Consistency, I like that.
Of course, an abortion is never mentioned.
So it’s ok to smoke, drink and fuck around unprotected. But if you get knocked up you gotta keep it.
Smoking is actually heavily promoted. When John Travolta as Danny wants to become a jock he shows up at the school gym with a cigarette in his mouth. The coach tells him to cut down to only two packs a day… How many packs was that dude doing anyway? But as you can see, smoking and sporting can go hand in hand. Coach says so.
One might get an idea of how many these guys smoke in one scene where Kenicky says he won’t walk away for his mistakes. He’s smoking (he’s rarely seen not smoking), but the next cigarette is already in place behind the ear. These kids are certified chain smokers I tell you that.
Now the cigarette also turns up at the end when Sandy decides she’s had it playing miss goody two shoes and turns into a sex-bomb. Now this is the finale, this is where life-lessons come to fruition in actions. This is where the wax-on and wax-off actually pays off, this is where Sandy turns up in a prostitute outfit smoking a cigarette and Danny absolutely digs that shit. They start singing “you’re the one that I want” in which Sandy says she needs a man who keeps her satisfied. So the message to us is: You only can get that really hot guy if you dress and behave like a real slut.
I love this film.
There’s tons of other little things you just got to pay attention to. When walking in the school hallway Kenicky is carrying a butterfly knife. So it’s cool to take weapons to school. I did that once… it was confiscated.
There’s this obligatory nerd-character everybody’s picking on. This alone should be enough to justify a school shooting scene. No such luck though. In the 50’s nerds just took their beating.
I’m wondering what they teach at Rydell High. Never in the entire movie do we see the ’kids’ (who are clearly halfway in their 20’s at least) participate seriously in any lessons. Sure, there’s one or two scenes in the classroom but they’re not paying any attention, yet they all seem to graduate at the end of the year. So even if your life only consists of drinking, smoking, illegal drag races, unprotected sex and hanging out all night you still have a bright and educated life before you.
OK, so Grease isn’t a role model movie and basically nobody will imitate it I hope. Unless bursting out in singing and dancing every chance you get is the next big thing. It’s a fun movie and will probably be remade one day. Come to think of it, they already did a remake. They called it High School Musical.
