Rebels of the 1950s

The film Grease was released on June 18, 1978 and was a big hit worldwide screening on 862 screens on opening night (IMDb.com). Grease takes place in the 1950’s and focuses mainly on the drama high school students’ face throughout their teenage years. This film is a perfect example of what goes on behind high school walls. Every scene of this movie shows a description of the different cliques found in high schools. You have the jocks who everyone admires for an amazing talent, the nerds whom everybody ignores or pushes around like a toy, the good girls who always do as they are told and most certainly the rebels, who do whatever they want. Grease is no exception for the different cliques found in high schools. But the majority of the film focuses around Danny (John Travolta) and his crew the T-birds who are the rebels of Rydell High School.
Roaming the halls of Rydell High School are the T-birds, who are known as the tough guys. Though they are mainly known as rebels, the audience can quickly see that the T-birds are also popular, cool and leaders. Nobody can push them around and of course every guy wants to be a part of the T-birds. The definition of fun for the T-birds is to always find some kind of mischief to get into. Most of their work in crime is done with the help of the Pink ladies (who are the T-birds counter parts known as the female rebels) for example in the film Grease, on a school night the T-birds stop by Rizzo’s (Stockard Channing) house and pick her up, she decides to sneak out for the night leaving the slumber party and the rest of the pink ladies members behind.
Danny and the T-birds singing on the bleachers.

The T-birds have an image of their own; they are always dressed in cool clothes though there is a difference between the image of the leader (Danny) and the rest of the members of the T-birds. Danny always stands out from the rest of the crew; he wears the black fitted pants with the white T-shirt and of course the black leather jacket. His hair is better than the other guys, with the perfect greased up curl at the top of his head. The rest of the crew follows a similar image of the leader but of course they never exceed his physical image. They mainly wear fitted jeans with some kind of modern sweater and of course had a greased curl at the top of their head, though not as shiny as Danny. One thing that was “in” in the 50’s was smoking no matter what your sex were, everyone took part in smoking so, having a cigarette placed behind your ear was  a very common thing in the 50s.

                                                      

T-birds leader Danny  

 The T-birds roaming the halls of Rydell High


         Every member of the T-birds shares the same characteristics. These guys can be the most unkind, heartless, tough rebels out there not caring about anybody else besides themselves. Their toughness is always first and they don’t care what it takes to maintain their tough image in the eyes of their classmates. No weakness is allowed in this group, in other words no soft feelings what so ever. If any trait of weakness is to be found upon the members of the T-birds they are automatically seen as less of a man and lose complete toughness in the public eye.
Danny was a victim of this selfish act; he faced the tough decision of choosing between love and pride. During summer vacation Danny met Sandy (Olivia Newton) the girl of his dreams and feel deeply in love with her. Back in school for their senior year the couple is shocked to see they are attending the same high school. Sandy fills with joy when she sees Danny again but, Danny puts on a tough act in order to keep his image aboard in front of the T-birds making Sandy upset (Wikipedia). Throughout the rest of the film Danny tries to win Sandy’s heart back by attempting new things that attract her attention such as track or a sport keeping in mind at all times his reputation. It doesn’t take long for the T-birds to notice his efforts for winning Sandy’s heart and they look at this act as if   Danny has let the T-birds down.



Danny trying out for basketball, something he had never tried before.

Though it affects Danny he continues his fight for Sandy and eventually earns himself a letter in track (Wikipedia). In the end Sandy decides to change her image for Danny and shows up at the carnival in a black leather suit and bright red lipstick with her hair curled and let loose. Danny immediately takes his track jacket off and is back to his old rebel self with his black outfit on and very pleased to see Sandy took this step in order to please him. This comes to show that though Danny was making an effort to change his ways he really preferred to keep his old ways rather than make a real change for the love of his life.

Sandy arrives at the carnival with her new look

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Danny admires Sandy new look while singing together.

Now in days this character of the rebel is still very accurate in high schools. The modern day rebel is a mixture of someone causing trouble (like Danny) and a player. A player is a term used by youth generations to refer to a guy who wants to date more than one girl at the same time. From personal experience I remember being friends with guys who did pretty much the complete opposite of what was asked for them to do, which shows their rebel side, and they also though that having more than one girlfriend highlighted the “cool” in them. Throughout the generations of time there has been a lot of different “cliques” but out of every decade there has always been the rebels. These type of people will always be around, just because there will always be someone that thinks they are better than everyone else.