The hugely-popular film Grease (astonishingly only a PG rating), starring John Travolta and Olivia-Newton-John, was made in 1978 but was set in Chicago in 1959, and set out to portray teenagers struggling to come to terms with their identity amid the pressures of society and in particular of their peers. Danny, the hip, cool leader of a gang had enjoyed being himself during the summer vacation when he met and fell in love with a beautiful good clean girl but when she unexpectedly turned up at his school at the start of the new academic year he acted all cool and distant to her in front of his peers. Sandra-Dee in turn is sucked into the new school world and conforms to their standards in order to win Danny back, appearing in a raunchy outfit and changing her name to a hipper Sandy.
Have we ever stopped to wonder why the musical “Grease” is so popular? Here we are, over forty-five years later, and schools are still presenting a production of “Grease” – and people love it as much now as they did when they were teenagers but also teenage children today love performing and watching it. Is it because it is about teenagers? Is it because of the music that still gets folk dancing? Is it because we all fancy ourselves as being Danny or Sandy? (Or because we just fancy them).
But here is a question or three to consider: would we want to send our child to Rydall High, if that is the behaviour that is found there? Do we want the school where our child goes to be like Rydall High? Or more bluntly, do we want our child to be like Danny, Sandy, or any of the other characters?
We surely cannot fail to recognise and understand that the message the film sends out is certainly not what we would want schools to promote, even in our current age and society. It says it is cool to be cool, cruel, crude and rude. It suggests under-age drinking, smoking and sex are positive and just a laugh. It presents stealing and bullying as being acceptable. It highlights peer pressure as being fun. But more importantly though less obviously it is reinforcing the idea that we are valued according to how we dress and that we should just go with the crowd — when we hear the words “Goodbye Sandra Dee” we are in effect saying, “Goodbye Sanity”. It is saying people are objects whom we can pick up and drop at will, that being one of the crowd is more important than retaining one’s individuality, dignity and integrity. As an audience along with the cast we laugh at the one character who has positive features – the cheerleader who will encourage and support the school, the student council member who is willing to work hard for others. The biggest insult is when even Sandra Dee is pressurised by her peers to push over the enthusiastic positive Patty.
And we love it!
Do we love it because we think “well, my child isn’t like that; so I can amuse myself that other kids are like that”? Or do we just brush if off with “it’s only a bit of fun! Lighten up!” Indeed, let us lighten up — and seek to enlighten parents. We need to be very careful what we stand for; we need to be very careful that we do set high standards and expectations and values for our children.
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Many a sportsman’s mantra before playing a shot or game is “Ease and grace”. By “ease” they are suggesting it must be natural, consistent, steady, relaxed — by “grace” they are looking for a freedom, beauty, generosity. It looks so easy, so right, so perfect. It allows us the confidence to move on again after we make a mistake, with a dignity, humility, honesty. That should be our whole life’s mantra. That should be what we want for our children to come out of school with.
However, all too often though our attempts at “ease and grace” come to no more than “grease and face” — they are dirty, slimy, sticky (grease) and superficial, forced, acting (face), simply an attempt to make life go by slickly. We accept very low standards of society.
The message of “Grease” is concerning and not what schools should stand by — we need to help pupils stand up as individuals within a community, building others up rather than tearing them down, recognising their equal worth as humans, setting standards and examples. Grace is actually the word we need to sing out — that is how they will be truly liberated (not lubricated).
Is that not the one that we want (to turn the words of the closing song around)? Goodbye grease; hello grace.