Grease: a tale of love and empowerment
or of anti-feminism? I love the music just as much as most people. However, I
have to be honest here. The first time I watched it I came away feeling
disappointed by the ending. Well, a mixture of feeling disappointed and having
been inspired to ponder the expectations that women have as I would be
perfectly okay if Danny had started behaving more like Sandy (then again, it’s
more so because I identify with original-Sandy and so the ending is
unsatisfying for me; it’s not a matter of gender but of my personal values. If the 'good' guy became 'bad' for the 'bad' girl, I would still be put off. Though, in all honesty, I probably would like it more than the 'good' girl changing for the 'bad' guy).
According to one of my best friends no one likes the ending, though, so when
Mum had Grease among her movie
suggestions for tonight I agreed to watch it again. I thought it would be nice
to watch the ending again to see what I think of it, and even if my opinion
hadn’t changed at least the music is catchy. Well...my opinion is pretty much
the same, except I’m considering that the purpose may have been to empower
Sandy in some way. But now I’m just left in this pit of uncertainty; is Sandy’s
change permanent? Is she now going to smoke and drink? If Danny tried to sleep
with her at the drive in again, would she let him? Or is it a makeover without
an ideological change? Or maybe it’s a mixture – maybe she’ll smoke and drink
occasionally but not get drunk or smoke excessively as she’s ‘loosened up’ but
still likes what she used to like. I don’t believe that she would have gotten
used to and started to enjoy smoking and drinking so quickly, or that she would
change her views about sex so immediately. Or has she? Is she willing to change
her opinions so as to ensure that she keeps Danny’s interest?
On a
different note, I picked up on a lot more of the innuendos throughout the
movie.
I wanted
to explore my theories first, but I just did some brief research about this.
-
Reminder
– Danny was also willing to change for Sandy. He donned a Letterman sweater in
place of his leather jacket in the last scene and told his friends about how
important she was to him.
- Apparently
my whole ponder-the-expectations point was actually what they were going for.
Huh. Interesting.
“The point of the show is always
missed by 99 percent of the critics all over the world, and by a lot of the
actors as well... It was a poke! A good old-fashioned razz against those...Hollywood
movies that turned the main guy into a fine, upstanding citizen...” - co-creator Jim Jacobs
If
we’re looking at the story, I don’t like Sandy’s change. If we’re looking at
the reasons behind it, I completely understand it and, from an
English-student-perspective, appreciate how they used their text to critique movie
trends.
