My dad is the reason I first watched Grease (1978). My dad, a large, loud, and fiery Italian man who looked like he walked straight out of The Sopranos (1999-2007), had a hidden soft-spot for musicals. One of them that he particularly enjoyed was Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. One day, when it was on TV, he introduced me to it, and I fell right into the trap laid out by that stellar soundtrack.

Grease, which adapts the stage musical of the same name, tells the story of a star-crossed romance between bad-boy Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and saccharine-sweet Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John), set amidst the greaser, 1950’s era. The two meet while on vacation and have a picture-perfect summer romance. They assume they will never see each other again when a twist of fate suddenly transfers Sandy to Danny’s high school. He’s the leader of a gang of ne-er-do-wells, the T-Birds, while Sandy is taken in by their female counterpart, the Pink Ladies. The two reunite, and it’s not the sweet reunion one might have imagined. Danny had actually fallen quite hard for Sandy over the summer, but he acts aloof and casual when he meets her at school so as to maintain his tough guy reputation. Sandy is understandably hurt by his abrupt change of character, and what ensues is an on-again, off-again relationship where their biggest obstacle is Danny himself. 

We get to know several other members of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies, as well, most notably Frenchie (Didi Conn), Kenickie (Jeff Conaway), and Rizzo (Stockard Channing). Frenchie is the first to befriend Sandy, while rough-around-the-edges Rizzo can barely conceal her disdain for the new girl. Rizzo has a romantic history with Danny, but finds herself in her own on-again, off-again relationship with Kenickie, Danny’s best friend.

Ultimately, after several dance numbers, some car racing, and many thinly-veiled and not so thinly-veiled sexual innuendos, both characters change for each other. Danny decides to become a jock and move on from the T-Birds, while Sandy ditches the good girl persona to become a Pink Lady vixen that Danny can’t resist. Great message, huh?

So, what can we learn about the Faith from Grease?

On the surface, the movie seems like a “what NOT to do” if you’re Catholic. It contains a lot of promiscuity, some underage drinking, and some implied theft. The overarching message of “change yourself for the person you love” is terrible, especially if those changes aren’t motivated by a true desire to better oneself or grow closer to the Lord. However, Grease does tell us about vulnerability and pride. Danny is so focused on maintaining his “too-cool-for-school” image that he jeopardizes his relationship with the woman he loves. In relationships, we often have to put our pride aside and be vulnerable. Marriage literally calls us to die to ourselves, just as Christ did for his Church. Until Danny could learn to do that, he and Sandy were never going to work out. 

Another character who struggles with pride and vulnerability is Rizzo. Rizzo does a lot of unlikeable things in this movie: she sings an entire song mocking Sandy at a sleepover when Sandy is in the next room; and she goes out with one of Kenickie’s rivals to make Kenickie jealous. However, we begin to view her through a more sympathetic lens when she sings “There are Worse Things I Could Do,” toward the end of Grease. This is one of the strongest performances in the musical, by the way. In the song, she talks about being judged for how she lives: “I could hurt someone like me/ Out of spite or jealousy/I don’t steal and I don’t lie/ But I can feel and I can cry/ A fact I’ll bet you never knew/ But to cry in front of you/ That’s the worst thing I could do.” Here, she reveals that she is afraid to be vulnerable, and that the judgment she experiences due to her reputation actually does hurt. This song reminds us that, as Catholics, we are called to love everyone, even the people who live completely different lifestyles than we do and who might be our loudest opponents. 

Usually, when a film adapts a musical or a book, the original is always better. In the case of Grease, however, I think it is widely believed that the movie is better. There are some changes to the music that I prefer in the film, like the addition of the song “You’re the One that I Want” at the end of the musical. I also think the casting was particularly great. I absolutely love Travolta as Danny, Newton-John as Sandy, and Channing as Rizzo, even if the actors were laughably older than the high school-aged characters they were portraying. If you’re looking for a silly musical with excellent music, this movie is for you. If you’re looking for a pillar of morality, I’d skip it.