What kind of moral message does this really deliver?

Maybe Grease really isn't "the word." Maybe the word should be whoa.


We've all seen Danny and Sandy dance around the silver screen pining for each other all while singing really catchy ditties. The memorable music often overshadows the storyline, which sends a really bad message to people, particularly young girls.


Last night my wife and I saw a stage production of the musical with some other couples. I've seen the film version with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John several times. It's been 30 years since the film was released. And while the film has often served as background noise, I've never really paid that much attention to the story. It took a friend of mine who has never seen the film or the stage production to make me re-examine the story. Sure, it's about rock-n-roll and the sexual revolution. That's simple enough to gather. It's also about teen angst and acceptance. But acceptance at what kind of cost?

Now, it's been a while since I felt the pressures of being a teenager and trying to fit in at school. But the story has undertones of changing who one is in order to fit in. At the end of the musical Sandy has tarted herself up in order to win her man Danny (who would have accepted her as she was - after all he did fall for her over the previous summer when she was more proper). So now Sandy acts like the very thing she was upset at Danny for making her out to be - an "easy" girl.

There is also the lesser relationship between the characters of Kenickie and Rizzo. The two begin a sexual relationship and suddenly Rizzo finds that her period is late. Thinking she's pregnant, she rebukes Kenickie. But of course at the end of the production when she finds out she was not pregnant and everything is alright between the two of them and they can be together - as if nothing happened. Now that is somewhat realistic with the irresponsibility of many teenagers, but don't we want our youth to be more responsible?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no moral arbiter, but it is funny how beloved stories can be glossed over without a real examination of their themes.