Sure, the movie "Grease" is good looking and has some fun musical numbers and a rollicking feel to it but I always hated the end. The bottom line is that Sandy had to conform, to cave in to peer pressure, to get her man.
I suppose some people would say that Sandy's goody-two-shoes character was conformist and that the movie is about subverting The Man's culture of control. But Sandy didn't seem repressed to me. She seemed happy with who she was. I didn't get the feeling she was longing to "break free" and misbehave. Maybe Olivia Newton John didn't have the acting chops to show us perkiness and regret at the same time. But it would have been a whole different movie if there had been even the tiniest hint that Sandy wanted to be like the others but she was afraid to be.
Conquering your fears to come more fully into yourself is a good lesson from a work of fiction. It's worth a triumphal musical number in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit. But changing your persona so that people will like you and to give an out to a guy who actually does like you but is ashamed to admit it to his friends is LAME. Ultimately "Grease" reinforces a herd mentality in the guise of a lighthearted teenage romp.
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