Grease is the Word

I was secretly pleased when my 13 year old Odelia asked me to rent out the movie "Grease". To the best of my memory, it was a wholesome light hearted 50's style musical, much better fare than the shallow sexually explicit Hip Hop ghetto fare shes been into lately.

Either my memory or my better judgement failed me this time. Grease is the story of how Sandy, an intelligent poised young lady from Australia, hooks up with a handsome dark stranger (Danny) over the summer, and much to her delight it turns out that he is an old hand at her new high school. The only thing is that her beau is a shallow bully who's interest in the "land down under" has nothing to do with Geography.

Sandy is at first disappointed, but Danny sincerely wishes to clean up his act and even cuts down to two packs a day and signs up for the track team. But Danny's heart isn't really set on scoring on the field and Sandy has to make a choice, and she does. In the end, she shows up and much to the delight of Danny and his loser cronies, she's every bit a slut as her arch rival Rizzo.

The moral of the story: Girls, if you have a mind and some character, you'll miss the dream-boat. He's only interested in tying up to a dingy. But if you lower your standards to the lowest common denominator and pretend that you don't have anything of value above the waist, well, by golly your ship will come in and everybody will love you.

Sometimes I'm glad that English isn't Odelia's mother tongue. While she's smart enough to pick up on the plot, most of the crude inuendo and not-inuendo went right over her head.

What was I thinking!?!!!!!

And what more, how did "Grease" pass my parent's strict Fundamentalist G-rated-only censurship? And I hear there is a Grease revival bringing in new converts daily; how is it that feminists world wide aren't up in arms?

"Grease" runs just about 180 degrees against everything I want for Odelia. It is a dramatization of the dilemma she faces these days; to make the most of the brilliant mind and gifted imagination God gave her, or to submit to the dictates of the bimbo brainless babes that rule Junior High.

Thank you, Hollywood. Now I have another mess to clean up.

Odelia asked me what "Grease" means.

"Oh, it's something goopy and slimy that's hard to wash off."