Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/25/greases-director-breaks-down.html
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Finally, the answer I’d been searching for.
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“Bad Sandy”?
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how far is notorious from here
Little details that make you feel like this is a real high school
I think that ball was already dropped during the casting stage.
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this movie and soundtrack was inescapable at the time. it’s still a fun musical, gotta say. i’m so amazed by all the attention to detail, combined with the things that you would think were planned out but instead were decided on the fly. movies are a crazy bidness.
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I never tire of pointing out that Olivia Newton-John’s grandfather was Max Born, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954.
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Oh, Olivia. When I was little, this scene with these pants, along with her in Xanadu and a live concert of her from Physical-era were my first experiences with “that weird feeling” and unable to explain it.
But it totally explains some of my fetishes. Thanks Olivia. You will always have a special place in my heart.
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Grease still stands out in my mind as the least realistic high school of any movie or tv show. The “high schoolers” all look like they are in their 30’s.
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A woman who is sexually empowered and/or is unashamed of her sexuality = bad.
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I just noticed that the dance between Bad Sandy and Danny has a lot in common with how The Cramps looked and behaved on stage, specially the cigarette scene.
Maybe it’s just my incurable Cramps obsession though but…
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I think Travolta was something like the second youngest of the principal characters at 25, with 19 year old Didi Conn as the only one remotely close.
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It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I always thought Sandy was acquiescing to Danny and chauvinism in general by adopting a persona and attitude he prefers… One that is sexually available. Maybe she’s now just being true to herself? I guess it’s good that Danny was trying to change for her too, but he quickly abandons the letterman jacket… In either case the idea that she is now “bad Sandy” is troubling on a couple levels…
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Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good!
Ugh, worst movie ending ever. The message is: “Ladies, to get a guy, you have to pretend to be someone completely different from yourself, preferably someone who looks like she’d be easy to get into bed.”
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Full disclosure:
While I wouldn’t call myself a fan, I’ve had a soft spot for that movie for ages… but I’m still very much aware of the numerous flaws inherent therein.
(Hell, my kid and I have running gags about how Rydell must be the worst high school, ever; no one ever goes to class or studies, which is why all the students are in their 30’s.)
The writers tried to even out that lame-ass cliche by having Danny “change” for Sandy too; but it was clearly a token and superficial gesture, especially in comparison to Sandy’s “transformation,” and the message being sent was clear - you have to conform in order to be accepted.
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Maybe it’s a high school full of students who had been “left back” for several years. Decades even. At what point do you throw up your hands and say, “Okay. You can graduate already.”
50 years?
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I was 10 when I saw grease in the theaters (Sigh) and was amazed by how old High School kids looked. It never occurred to me at the time that they were like 30. When I got to high-school I figured that shit out.
Still, that soundtrack was one of those major things in my childhood that and Gilda Live.
On top of that “Did she put up a fight” is cringe inducing and horrible.
Same here, that despite all those problems this film has a ton of Nostalga for me.
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Yep; rape culture, in action. (Also evident in Marty’s throwaway line about catching Vince Fontaine trying to slip an aspirin in her soda.)
Equally terrible was the slut-shaming of Rizzo, when she had her pregnancy scare.
(But Stockard Channing is still awesome, regardless.)
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