Film Analysis: Grease

Aliyah Walton

CRS 321

Professor Martinez-Novoa

4 March 2015

Film Analysis: Grease

The film that I chose to write my analysis on is the musical Grease. This paper will discuss the plot of the movie, how dress affects the characters and their roles, and why dress is important for communication. The character I selected is Sandy Olsson. I chose Sandy because she is the only character in the movie that has an apparent change in her style of dress.

The movie takes place in 1959 at Rydell High School in California. The main characters in the film are Sandra Dee Olsson, The Pink Ladies- Frenchy, Rizzo, Marty and Jan, and The T-Birds- Danny Zuko, Kenickie, Doody, Sonny and Putzie.

Grease is a musical film based on the teenage romance of Australian, good girl, Sandy Olsson and greaser Danny Zuko. These two met over the summer at the beach while Sandy was visiting America from Australia. The two of them took part in a summer romance. Once summer ended; however, fate took a toll on them and Sandy’s parents decide to stay in America and the two lovers unknowingly ended up going to the same school. Although this may seem exciting, Sandy quickly finds out that Danny at school is a completely different person than Danny from the beach. Danny is the leader of a gang called the T-Birds and has a very known reputation that needs to be kept. If he was to fall in love with Sandy, that would make him seem weak and uncool. This concept upsets Sandy, so she seeks comfort with some newly made friends – The Pink Ladies. The Pink Ladies is a gang of pink wearing girls who are edgy and daring. Sandy; however, is too prim and proper and does not exactly fit in with the rest of the gang. This almost leaves her completely alone. She makes a choice and decides to change her “Sandra Dee” appearance in order to keep her friends and Danny around. Once Danny see’s the transformed Sandy, he realizes that he’s made a mistake by neglecting her and they end up getting back together with each other (Shultz).

Sandy’s entire identity is portrayed through her dress. When we first meet her at the beginning of the movie, she has on a high collared blouse with a cardigan over it and a long poodle skirt. Her hair is neatly combed and curled under with a flower headband and nearly no makeup on. She gives off the idea that she is very conservative and modest. As the movie goes on, we see Sandy taking steps to alter her appearance into the “bad girl” persona that you see demonstrated by The Pink Ladies. The first thing she does is allowing The Pink Ladies to talk her in to smoking a cigarette. Soon after she lets Frenchy pierce her ears in the bathroom. These activities create a dent into Sandy’s “goody-two-shoes” persona. By the end of the movie, Sandy has transformed into an all out edgy girl, just like her friends. She shows up at the school carnival wearing all black leather with red pumps, curled and teased hair, smoky makeup with red lipstick, all while smoking a cigarette.