I'll give you some overhead lifters and four barrel quads, baby

[clevermanka]

I don't think I can properly articulate how much I hate the musical Grease. Suffice to say I hate it a lot. But this video makes me okay with the fact it exists.

HOT.

Comments

[indicolite.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Yay! So glad you liked it!

[pointoforigin.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness there's someone else who doesn't like Grease! But I agree, this video almost makes it worthwhile. I have a feeling that Swedish marines can make a great many suboptimal situations seem better . . . umhh!!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that Swedish marines can make a great many suboptimal situations seem better

Truth.

[sherwood21.livejournal.com]

OH. EM. GEE. They are so adorable I could just die. ^_^

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Aren't they JUST? I love the combination of overt enthusiasm and really, really bad lip-synching.

[hdsqrl.livejournal.com]

I'll have you know - that any time you mention you and McKitterick working on the Chevelle, I'll now envision this exact scene playing out in your garage. Only, you know, with just the two of you instead of the whole platoon.

Time to work on the careful ricochet off the side of the car.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Trust me, their version is SO MUCH BETTER. As wonderful and sexy as we are, we cannot compete with Swedish Marines.

[zitronenhai.livejournal.com]

I hate it, too. When I was a kid, I found it embarrassing.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Even as a kid I knew those costumes were crap and the music was worse. Then I got older and was able to also be offended by the story. AWESOME.

[indicolite.livejournal.com]

Interesting --- I've only seen the stage version, as our high school put it on, and I found the story stupid/unnerving from the first, but didn't mind the costumes or music (except that the music doesn't call for strings, so I, a violinist at the time, couldn't be in the pit band).

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I imagine that the costumes in a high school production would probably be on par with what was in the movie, so...

[djangodurango.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing a lot of Grease hate lately. Why do you hate Grease?

(I like Grease, but not fanatically. We can't be friends if you don't like Chicago though.)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I la-la-LOVE Chicago! So we can still be friends. =D

I don't like Grease because I can't get past the fake 50s stuff. Fake 50s music, fake 50s costumes, fake 50s politics, fake 50s everything. Mid-century America is fascinating and deeply influential and heartbreaking and so many things that the musical Grease is not.

As a child I couldn't understand why the television shows Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were supposed to take place in the 50s because the costumes were so painfully 70s, even to my little-kid eyes. Later, as an adult, when I got seriously into the rockabilly scene and better understood the politics of music and society, the fake 50s shit that was perpetuated by things like those television shows and Grease actually made me angry. Still do.

I understand that the musical is supposed to be a lighthearted look at an idealized version of American culture, but my god they could at least have written vaguely era-appropriate music. Not to mention costume the cast in something better than what I could have culled from a "50s Day" during an average high school spirit week.

[djangodurango.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay. Those are all valid points. Now that you mention it, I always did find the Pink Ladies' jackets disappointing-looking. I really like Sandy's makeover outfit though.

I just always figured those kinds of shows were sort of a symptom of a certain sort of fear. For a lot of people, the 50's represents this strange, peaceful time where everything was ideal and you didn't have to be political and everyone knew their place. That's why conservative folk always seem to have such a hard-on for it, white picket fences and nuclear families and minorities knowing their role. Like, everything was fine until 1960 when everyone started getting uppity and loud. And even for people who aren't uncomfortable with the change the world is going through, the perceived lack of change in the 50's is still comforting.

It's hard to do that with any other decade because what few of them weren't about wars or depression were full of overt cultural change.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Erasure and idealization of the 50s is so monstrously problematic. You just articulated one of the reasons I hate Grease so much. It perpetuates that idealized shit and that pisses me off so much. Because it's all fake. Just like the fake perfection of the 50s.

UGH.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

I really like Sandy's makeover outfit though.

Me, too! If I dig through some photos, I can find a pic of my Mum in a silver outfit she made that was less spandex but very similar style...the off-shoulder tight top and tight cigarette pants with some kind of Barbie doll shoes. HA!

[kazoogrrl.livejournal.com]

What. The fuck. Did I just watch?

(loved the part where they were running with the scarves? towels?)

The only "thing filmed in but set in the 50s/60s" that I really love is Hairspray (the original film). OK, and Cry Baby. And I'm not just saying that because I'm from Baltimore.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I fucking LOVE Cry Baby. Now there is a good way to send up the idealization of the 50s. WELL PLAYED, JOHN WATERS.

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

I wonder what it was about that particular movie era .. it brought us Xanadu and American Graffiti (barf) as well.

Stockard Channing was the best thing about Grease. I love her. Her hair was actually appropriate to the time, it was the same style my mum wore in her glory days.
I think that video is sweeeet.. and it's the best song of the movie, even if it's not a 50s song.

Wait? There was a story to Grease?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I think you can say that about any era, though. It's only a particular genre of movie from the 70s. That stuff they thought would appeal to the masses--and it did. Overall, the 70s were pretty fucking amazing when it came to art and media. Blazing Saddles, The Godfather, Jaws, The Sting, etc., as well as really ground-breaking stuff like The French Connection and Alien.

God's honest truth, I prefer Grease 2. Because this:


Better addresses some of the sexist and political issues of the era than the original did. It's still awfully white, but I felt like the writers were making some sort of attempt at commentary.