The hit 1978 musical Grease has been around for many years; parents showed this film to their kids, who later showed it to their kids. With the undeniable sense of cool it gives off to a “simpler time”, Grease depicts teenagers doing heaps of things that their parents forbid them to do, such as smoking, dressing and acting provocatively, racing cars, having sex with randoms, and getting into gang fights. Yet we do many of these things at nightclubs. Coincidence? Think again!
Smoking has always been considered a social activity, and even a way to introduce yourself to the opposite sex to light their cigarette up to look like the girl’s knight in nicotine armour. During the years when smoking seemed cool (even sexy!), cigarette companies knew this and had people smoking in movies and TV to get people to think smoking was cool and would make you more attractive. With teens smoking cigarettes like they’re in a 1950s Winfield commercial, these teens look nothing short of cool (they are also the oldest-looking teens in the world! Due to smoking perhaps?). These kids surely wouldn’t put up with having to go to a smoking room or outside to have a puff.
Smoking isn’t the only vice Grease has made youngsters think is cool. Olivia Newton-John’s character Sandy was a nice girl at the start of the film who loved John Travolta’s greaser Danny Zuko after having had a summer romance with him. But once the school year started and Sandy decided to stay permanently, Zuko snobbed her off, acting like he was too cool for her. After a couple of failed attempts to make things work between them, her reluctance to sleep with him made him piss off. So what does Sandy do? She becomes another leather clad ho like the other girls at school to win Zuko over. Was the moral of Grease that girls had to became skanks to get the guy they wanted, even if he’s a dick?
Speaking of girls wanting boys, Grease basically promotes unprotected sex! There’s a scene where Kenickie and Rizzo are making out in the backseat of his beat up car where they decide to do it, but because his condom is expired, he thinks they can’t do it, but Rizzo shrugs it off and says “Ah, what the hell?” Though their coitus session gets interrupted by a rival gang member and they don’t end up doing it, anyone with half a brain knows that if you don’t use a condom when rooting, you can easily get an STI or pregnant. No one wants either of those from someone whose name you can’t even remember! On that note, when they’re making out, Keneckie can’t even remember Rizzo’s first name! This was Kenickie’s Mrs, so imagine how he would have been with a girl he just met! At least he came prepared, though it was a five year old condom that broke.
With teens wearing leather, racing vintage muscle cars and singing ridiculous but catchy songs, it was no wonder teens still do the things that adults condemn them for. It was these adults who showed these kids this vice filled movie to begin with! Oh well, at least it’s not as bad as Grease 2.
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