GREASE: A CELEBRATION OF THE 60'S SEXUAL REVOLUTION

     Your first thoughts might be, "Wait a minute. Grease was set in the 1950s. How can it be a movie that celebrates the sexual revolution that came about in the 1960s?" It is true that Grease was set in the 1950s, 1959 as a matter of fact, but the whole concept of the movie was a throwing off of the values that were still culturally held by most Americans in the 1950s for the ideas of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. This is seen in the movies title song itself.

I solve my problems and I see the light
We gotta plug and think, we gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger we can go too far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

Grease is the word
They think our love is just a growing pain
Why don't they understand, It's just a crying shame
Their lips are lying only real is real
We start to find right now we got to be what we feel

Grease is the word
Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be what we are

Grease is the word
Grease is the word, is the word that you heard
It's got groove it's got meaning
Grease is the time, is the place is the motion
Grease is the way we are feeling
This is the life of illusion
Wrapped up in trouble laced with confusion
What we doing here?

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday
There is a chance that we can make it so far
We start believing now that we can be who we are

 

     The first two line speak of the generation that came into being young adults in the 1960s believing that they were the first ones to have a clear understanding of what really truth in the world around them. They believed that all the generations that came before them had messed everything up, and had no wisdom to convey to them. A common catch phrase of the youth in the 60s was, "Do not trust anyone over thirty years old." (Their lips are lying only real is real)

      There ain't no danger we can go to far.

      The young adults of the 60s really believed that there not going to be any consequences to their setting aside of any morals of the past. Free love. Have all the sex you want with whoever you want. Take whatever drugs you want. Drop out of life. Live like a bohemian. Everything will turn out okay.

We take the pressure and we throw away
Conventionality belongs to yesterday

     Unfortunately, much of the culture of the 1950s in America was about personal comfort, fitting in (being conventional), and "keep up with the Jones." The morality of pop culture and most Americans of the 1950s could be explained from a line in the Christmas favorite Santa Claus is Coming to Town:  "Be good for goodness sake." (We will look further at this when we examine some of the television programs of the 1950s) It was a type of "moralism" that was separated from the Gospel. This was partly what the youth of the 1960s were rebelling against. Unfortunately, they also rebelled against the truth that is found in the Bible.

     Through most of the movie, Olivia Newton John's character represents the innocence that many remember the 1950s for. She is also attracted to the "bad boy" character that John Travolta plays in the movie. Many harken back to the 1950s as a "time of innocence," but the seeds of what would come to full bloom in the 1960s were planted in the 1950s and before.

     One song in the movie has Stockard Channing making light of Olivia Newton John's character's innocence:, Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee.

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity
Won't go to bed till I'm legally wed, I can't, I'm Sandra Dee
Watch it, hey, I'm Doris Day, I was not brought up that way
Won't come across, even Rock
Hudson lost his heart to Doris Day
I don't drink or swear, I won't rat my hair,
I get ill from one cigarette
Keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers.
Would you pull that crap with Annette?
As for you, Troy Donahue, I know what you wanna do
You got your crust, I'm no object of lust,
I'm just plain Sandra Dee Elvis,
Elvis, let me be, keep that pelvis far from me
Just keep your cool, now you're starting to drool
Hey, fungu, I'm Sandra Dee

      Later in the movie, Olivia's character sings the same song about herself, but with a twist.

Look at me,
There has to be something more than what they see
Wholesome and pure,
Oh so scared and unsure, a pawn then,
Sandra Dee Sandy,
You must start anew,
Don't you know what you must do
Hold your head high,
Take a deep breath and sigh
Goodbye to Sandra Dee

 

     How does her character start anew? In the last scene of the movie, she appears, to every one's surprise, in a black tight fitting outfit and smoking a cigarette. Clearly a sign that her character has opted to cast of her innocence.

     This same theme is further explored twenty years later in the 1998 motion picture Pleasantville, where two modern teens (portrayed by Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) find themselves trapped in a 1950s sitcom. Through the sitcom, the 1950s are portrayed as black and white with no excitement or life to it. Color come to the town of Pleasantville through "sexual liberation". 

     We live in a world now that tells us that true freedom and hapiness can be found by throwing away the sexual mores of the past. We are told that monogomy was a concept forced upon us by those who would want to control us. None of this is true.
     Contrary to the belief of most people today, "sex" is not a dirty word to God. Sex is a gift from God. It is a gift that is to be used in its proper place. It is to be between one man and women who come together in the covenant of marriage for life. Sex is not just a biological function either. There also are emotional and spiritual aspects to it.
     The main reason that sexual sin is to be avoided is not because of the negative physical  consequences that could come out of it (AIDS, Herpes, out of wedlock pregancies, etc), but because it violates the holiness of God.

SELAH

     True freedom comes through placing one's trust in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.