Grease: How little has changed in 37 years

Grease How little has changed in 37 years

Grease is a classic, but for those that haven’t seen it, let me fill you in: Sandy (Olivia Newton John) and Danny (John Travolta) are high school seniors who met over the summer and fell in love. The love birds parted ways, at the end of summer, however, because Sandy expected to head back to Australia. It turns out though that Sandy’s family decides to stay in town and that Sandy and Danny both miraculously attend the same high school! Danny still has feelings for Sandy, but struggles with showing them because he feels pressure to keep up his tough, cool reputation that he holds amongst his friends.

While many of the songs and scenes in Grease are well known and loved, I want to focus on the two that I believe are most popular still today: “Summer Nights” and “You’re the One that I Want”. I see various overlaps in these musical scenes with material we have discussed in class.

In class we talked about stereotypes of the ideal heterosexual man and woman and in “Summer Nights” we see what women are looking for in men, and what men are looking for in women. In the song, we see that women, like Sandy, are interested in men that are good-looking (“cute as can be”), physically in shape (“he ran by me, got my suit damp”), breadwinners (her friends ask “how much dough did he spend” and if Danny “has a car”), and romantic (“he got friendly, holding my hand”). Men, in contrast, are looking for one main thing from a female partner: sexual relations. Danny’s friends ask Danny “did you get very far” and Danny tells his friends how him and Sandy “made out under the dock” and how “she was good, you know what I mean”. I find it interesting that this movie was made in 1978 but the stereotypes for what makes an ideal man and an ideal woman have not changed over the past 37 years. Women are still looking for a good looking, strong man that can provide financially but satisfy romantically, while men are still just interested primarily in sex.

In the “Summer Nights” scene I also see heterosexual commitment scripts depicted (Kim, Sorsoli, Collins, Zylbergold, Schooler, & Tolman, 2007). Danny wants his friends to think that the fling he had over the summer was just about “getting some” and was nothing deeper. This is evident through the way he stresses the sexual part of the fling and purposely neglects discussing the emotional part of the summer fling. Danny depicts masculine commitment because amongst his friends, Danny appears noncommittal. In contrast, Sandy tells her friends about the commitment in their summer relationship. She talks about strolling and holding hands, stressing that their relationship had a romantic component to it (i.e. was more than just making out as Danny made it seem). Again, I find it funny that these masculine and feminine commitment scripts are still strongly in play today, 37 years later.

While “Summer Nights” happens at the beginning of the movie, “You’re the One that I Want” is at the end of the movie and is when the Danny and Sandy profess they are still in love with one another. The movie wraps up with a scene in which many love myths (as discussed in “Love Will Steer the Stars”) are depicted. First, is the idea that “the right mate ‘completes you’” (Bader, 2007). Sandy sings to Danny “You’re the one that I want… my heart is set on you… To my heart I must be true”. In essence, Sandy sends the message that she needs Danny and cannot exist without him (as the heart is necessary for the body to function, Sandy needs Danny in her life to function). Second, the song sends the message that “the love of a good and faithful true woman can change a man from a ‘beast’ into a ‘prince’” (Bader, 2007) through the lyrics “I better shape up, ‘cause you need a man who can keep [you satisfied]”. Through these lyrics, Danny acknowledges that Sandy’s love has changed him into a better version of his self – a version that is now going to be worthy of Sandy.  Finally, the scene [which consists of Sandy wearing tight black leather pants, red heels, and red lipstick] depicts the myth that “to attract and keep a man, a woman should look like a model or a centerfold” (Bader, 2007). Since men always have sex on their mind, in order to get Danny’s attention, Sandy has dressed up in an outfit that screams sex appeal. Had Sandy dressed up in normal attire, it is questionable whether or not John Travolta would have been quite as smitten with her and quite as willing to change for her.

As mentioned earlier, this movie was made in 1978. What I don’t understand is how in 37 years, nothing has changed (aside from the fashion of course). The ideal female and male stereotypes, the heterosexual scripts, and the messages about love shown in Grease are all still prominent in today’s culture. Why is this? Maybe, just perhaps, we as a society are not critical enough of media. I am not saying that we cannot consume fun, catchy, cute films like Grease but maybe we should not just eat everything up and devour all the messages about love as they are handed to us. Maybe, just maybe, if we become more critical of the media we consume, in another 37 years we will actually see some change.

Works Cited:

Bader, A. (2007). “Love will steer the stars” and Other Improbable Feats: Media Myths in Popular Love Songs In Critical thinking about sex, love, and romance in the mass media: media literacy applications (pp. 141-157). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Kim, J., Sorsoli, C. L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. (2007). From Sex to Sexuality: Exposing the Heterosexual Script on Primetime Network Television. Journal of Sex Research, 44, 145-157.