Thoughts on the "Grease" phenomenon

[asakiyume]

I've had a number of things simmering on the back burners of my mind, and one of them is the "Grease" phenomenon: stories in which a socially conforming character transforms into something (supposedly) excitingly transgressive to make a romance work out--as in the musical Grease. The girl changes completely; the boy, not at all. (The genders can be reversed, though, as in stories in which a manic pixie dream girl stories transforms someone who's supposedly, or actually, stodgy or straitlaced or conventional into something marked as better or more exciting.)

It seems to me that this is obviously because in the minds of the storytellers, one character's stance is desirable and the other's isn't, and so it's right for the one with the undesirable stance to change. At one time, this led to stories where the love of a good woman converted a bad boy--she wasn't expected to become a rowdy lawbreaker; the transformation was all in him. That was equally tiresome. But by now it's switched so it's the other way around.

In any case, however the change goes, and whatever traits are favored, it bothers me when love is depicted as requiring suppression or erasure of characteristics that make a person who they are and adoption of new characteristics.

Love does change people, but stories that give me the impression that the happiness of the couple is based on one person repairing themself, while the other person changes not at all, are VERY UNSATISFYING. If two people are genuinely in love, aren't they most likely to both change in ways that make the love stronger? One partner helps the other get over timidity and learn to be more adventurous, and meanwhile the adventurous partner is learning the pleasures of close observation, which they hadn't done much of before when they'd been rushing from one adventure to the next.

That's the pattern I prefer.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think there is a very deep need for the Beauty and the Beast trope, that is, the dangerous man tamed by the love of a good woman, and while the variations are interesting, I never found them convincing. I think I enjoy stories where people play roles, but remain essentially themselves, or changes come from within. But the Pygmalion thing: not so much.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

But the Pygmalion thing: not so much.

Yeah, stories where one partner consciously changes the other, Pygmalion style, are especially chilling. What sort of egocentric universe is it in which you totally design your partner! It's making yourself, and your own imaginings of what's right and good and desirable, bigger and more important than the whole rest of the universe, which just maybe has a thing or two to show you, if you'd let it. Shudder-worthy.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Funny how Grease and Pygmalion (well, My Fair Lady, actually) made me swoon when I was younger and now make me cringe and think, Do I really want my daughter watching/absorbing this? I guess I do, but only with discussion afterwards to think together about what is really going on. And kind of related but not: Have you watched this TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/beeban_kidron_the_shared_wonder_of_film?language=en) about a film club with kids? I so want to do something like that with our kids on our family movie nights instead of watching just "kids' films."

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Can you remember why it was that they made you swoon as a kid? I didn't actually see My Fair Lady until I was a young adult, but I think I accepted it when I first saw it because I bought into the buffed-up, shinier self that Eliza became. (Also, it was funny.) Plus, in the film she does fight back a bit, and if Henry Higgins doesn't change much, at least he's forced to deal with the fact that Eliza has feelings.

But with Grease, I just disliked her look when she was transformed at the end. I identified much more with the quiet good girl. For me, that type was the put-upon type. I didn't realize, as a kid, that the tough girls get all sorts of grief, too. Thinking about it now, I can see how affirming it could be, for a tough girl, to have the transformation work the way it did.