There is a group of women that fall somewhere in the 30-40 year age range, who at one time in their childhood, were completely in love with the movie Grease. It’s okay to admit it.
Be proud, ladies. Be proud.
I know that for me, I dreamed of the day that I could be as cool as the Pink Ladies and hang out with the T-Birds. My friends and I spent whole afternoons re-enacting scenes from the movie and actually dressing up like Sandy. I’ll always remember a girl named Libba Fletcher, who lived down the street, trying to convince us that she looked more like Olivia Newton-John than the rest of us.
It never failed to start a huge debate because of course all of us wanted to look like Olivia and in reality, since we were about 6 or 7 years old, I don’t think any of us qualified, even though we had teased our hair, cut up our black Danskin leotards and paired them with our mama’s Candies to recreate the final scenes of the movie.
We would beg our mamas to take us to the theater to see it “just one more time” and we had it so completely memorized that we knew the first notes of Beauty School Dropout, which was a scene we didn’t care for, and we could make a run for more candy or popcorn because NO WAY were we missing Greased Lightning (which is a totally dirty song, but I didn’t figure that out until years later).
I had the Grease album on LP and 8 track and wore both of them out from listening all the time. I would lipsync in front of my mirror and dream of the day that I could be like Sandy. In fact, I think it was the summer before 4th grade when I had the brilliant idea that maybe I should wear dresses like Sandy to school everyday and on the last day of school, shock everyone by wearing my Jordache Jeans with my black t-shirt with the sparkly iron-on rainbow and my red satin jacket from Weiners, which looked just like the ones the Pink Ladies wore except it was you know…red and from Weiners.
So, in light of all these embarrassing revelations, imagine my excitement when I heard about the new reality show that starts January 7th called “You’re the One that I Want”. It is a reality show wherein contestants vie for the chance to play Sandy and Danny Zuko in the Broadway production of Grease.
It’s like a dream come true that combines my love of reality television with one of the greatest movies of all time.
I will be glued to the television come January 7th. In fact, I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying and I’m losing control.