theres a trend on tiktok of women with the beard filter and captioning it stuff like “me when i pay for dinner” and its truly a reminder that we as a society are actively going back to our wierd fucked up gender stereotype ways like. since when did we go back to agreeing that a man has to pay for dinner, open car doors. since when did we go back to this old traditional view point of what “being a gentleman” is. feminism has now been somehow degraded into being bimbo feminisim/ actively hating on every single man and veering dangerously into TERF territory AND also forgetting that at the end of the day feminism is meant to benefit both women AND men. not to mention that trend thats like “oh when he looks a little bit gay” like what does a gay man look like to u. since when did we as a collective go back to agreeing that effeminate men = gay??

Stray Kids Is Your Next K-Pop Obsession — Here’s Why

Just a little over a year after exploding onto the K-pop scene, the young nine-member boy band Stay Kids stands onstage thousands of miles away from their home in Seoul. The New Jersey Performing Arts Center is packed with thousands of fans, called STAY. The majority female audience — strikingly diverse in ethnicity and age — is shouting the opening “na-na”s of “My Pace,” the band’s gritty breakout hit about trusting in your own path and not comparing yourself to others. It’s one thing to hear it on the track, but another entirely to hear it thundering from nearly 3,500 young people in a cavernous space. It’s an empowering, rollicking battle cry.

K-pop has often been likened to a “factory” by the media — a “machine” that pumps out bands on a conveyor belt and hands them hollow, algorithmic pop songs to lip-sync as they move in perfect synchronization. The new generation of South Korean pop groups proves that stereotype resoundingly false. And few subvert it more than Stray Kids — with members Bang Chan, Woojin, Seungmin, Hyunjin, Changbin, HAN, Lee Know, Felix, and I.N — whose inventive mix of EDM, rap, and rock rebel against the norm, and whose sincere, self-penned lyrics are inspiring the rising generation to speak up, because they have something to say.

“We want to be remembered as a team that not only makes good music, but makes the kind of music that really influences and helps people,” fox-faced vocalist and youngest member I.N tells Refinery29 ahead of the second the band’s two sold out shows in Newark, the first stop on the on the U.S. leg of their “UNVEIL Tour 'I am…' world tour. “That's one of our biggest dreams.”

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype." BANG CHAN

Ingrained in Stray Kids’ DNA is their creative agency. Bang Chan, Changbin, and HAN — known as 3racha — have written and produced the majority of the group's discography, but all nine members have had writing credits on their work, which isn't often seen from young bands in the industry. This ownership has allowed them to experiment and play with their sound, and even their videos — many of their visuals are of them singing and goofing off, filmed on GoPros (as one does when not questioning your entire existence). It’s also allowed them to showcase each member’s versatility. While many K-pop group members usually have defined roles within a group, there’s a joke within the fandom that Stray Kids sometimes feels like it has nine rappers and nine vocalists — whether it’s vocalist Lee Know dishing a scorching opening rap in “District 9,” or rapper Hyunjin letting his gentle tenor shine in “불면증 (Insomnia).”

It’s also this personal, hands-on approach that not only allows them to tell their stories as authentically as possible, but has allowed them to speak even more directly to their fans. This line of communication to the generation they speak for is the most vital to their success thus far, so the perception that their work could be anything but personal is ill-conceived.

“I don't think it's fair for anyone to say K-pop is a machine. It’s a stereotype,” says Bang Chan, turning contemplative. “But I think the reason why people might think that is because the way K-pop is built is very well-organized, and performance-wise everything is precise and well-crafted. What some people probably don’t understand is that we think of it as a gateway that allows artists to reach out to their fans.”

Stray Kids discography weaves a narrative that begins with the fictional dystopia of District 9, in which they are prisoners of a suffocating system that tries to define them. They then explored their own identities throughout the group’s I Am… trilogy as they grappled with questions that plague both them and their fans, who are growing up along with them.

“The question that we always come back to, that everyone asks themselves, that I ask myself is, 'Who am I?'” says 21-year-old Australia-raised leader Bang Chan. “I think I've been thinking about that from a really young age. Honestly right now I haven't found out who I am, and I'm still trying to figure that out. Through our music we wanted to express that and reach out to those who feel the same way, so we can have a connection with one another.”

In March, they released a new, more confident chapter of their story, Clé 1: Miroh, led by the massive, boisterous single “Miroh.” Pulsing with brassy beats and lion’s roars, the song, according to rapid-fire rapper Changbin is about “gaining the confidence to face new challenges.” The visual, set in a Hunger Games-esque world, finds the members organizing a rebellion and literally grabbing the mic from the elite class in charge.

If anything, this is the machine that Stray Kids actively fight against — societal expectations and unmanageable pressure put on young people today. And while songs on Clé 1: Miroh such as “Victory Song” and “Boxer” share the same dauntless spirit, the group still leave room for vulnerability. “19” is a haunting, echoing song written by HAN about his fears as he teeters on the cusp of adulthood.

“When I was 19 [Koreans calculate age differently], going into my twenties, I was excited to become an adult,” says HAN. “But as the time actually came closer, I had so many emotions and thoughts running through my head. I was scared, but I wanted to express my feelings to my fans who are going through the same thing through this song.”

Before Stray Kids debuted as a group, they were on a self-titled musical competition TV series. Felix and Lee Know were cut from the group, to the devastation of the other members, but were later added again after proving themselves once more. This emotional rollercoaster that the members endured is partially to thank for their close bond, and why the group treat each other and their STAYs like family. That and the examples set by their own families growing up.

“When we were young, whenever we went through hard times, my mom would always try to cheer me and my sisters up,” says Australian-Korean Felix, whose deep bass tone is in striking contrast to his lithe stature. “This example of loving and supporting one another is something I carry with me constantly. She inspired me to want to help other people, make others feel better by surprising or comforting them.”

“I'm so thankful to my mom for giving me unconditional love,” adds honey-voiced eldest member Woojin. “I learned a lot from her — she takes so much care in how she interacts with other people and keeps good, healthy relationships with the people around her as well.”

This all helped build the foundation of what Stray Kids is today — a group of young people who, by acknowledging their fears and faults, want nothing more than to unite with those who understand them across language and geographic borders, using the tools at their disposal. And even with only a year under their belts, it looks as if their message is already resonating.

“Each and every one of you have your own special story, right?,” Bang Chan said as the Newark show neared its close, and after fans finished a vibrant “We love you!” chant to the nine young men on stage. “[...] So I feel like today is not just STAY and people being in this beautiful venue: it’s a thousand stories all inside this really big space. I’m just glad that through music — and through the music that we make — we can gather all these stories and relate to each other. I think that’s really fantastic.”

Article Source: here

What's That Playing On the Radio?

It hurts me when people disparage Grease. Party because I love it dearly (and have done it three times!), and partly because almost everyone -- including people who love it -- underestimate both the show's authenticity and the writing craft. It's so much better and darker and smarter and subtler than you think. Many people scoff, but it's true -- the score of Grease is remarkable in its craft and authenticity, even referencing actual songs of the period. Many of the actual period songs that influenced the Grease score were not chart toppers, because the Grease kids didn’t always listen to the most popular music; they were more musically and culturally adventurous than that. They listened to songs you could only hear late night on Alan Freed’s radio show, “race songs,” dirty songs, songs that scared adults. But it’s important to note that the songs of Grease differ from real rock and roll songs in one significant way. The lyrics to real 50s rock and roll songs were the least important element of the song, often just dummy lyrics used as a vehicle for the artists’ personal vocal stylings, or for sophisticated harmonies or melodic ornaments. As in rhythm and blues, one of rock and roll’s parents, a song didn’t have to convey information, just style and emotion, most of which was delivered through the abstract language of music. But theatre songs have to convey a lot of information or the show won’t work (which is why it was such a mistake to put a real 50s song into the 1994 revival). Because sung lyrics take more time than spoken dialogue, musicals have to do a lot of storytelling in fewer words than a play. So in Grease, “Summer Nights” lays out the central backstory, as well as characterizing most of the two gangs through their pointed questions. “Magic Changes” and “Rock and Roll Party Queen” lay out and explore the show’s central themes: Sex; Drive-ins and Sex; and Rock and Roll and Sex; Most of the girls’ songs provide psychological character details – Marty and Rizzo’s cynical view of love in “Freddy My Love” and “Worse Things;” the friction between Rizzo and Sandy in “Sandra Dee” – but we also find commentary on 50s sexuality in “Greased Lightning,” “Mooning,” “Drive-In Movie,” and of course “Worse Things.” Every lyric contributes to the agenda of this deceptively sophisticated concept musical. Grease opens with an authentically and properly bland “Alma Mater,” the sound of the adult world, of authority, complete with archaic language (like foretell, hovel, and thou shalt) which then is ripped apart, deconstructed, unexpectedly exploding, invoking “Johnny B. Goode,” as well as that audacious rejection of adult culture, “Roll Over Beethoven.” Like Berry’s “School Day,” the raunchy parody “Alma Mater” is an assault, a declaration of culture war, a defiant fuck-you to the adult world, as the Greasers literally steal away the adults’ anthem, give it a driving beat, and twist it to suit their own purposes. And so Grease is off and running. This will not be a nice show, a tame show, a traditional show, the music tells us. This will be aggressive, even obnoxious. This will be rock and roll theatre. We move into the second scene and “Summer Nights,” the introduction of two of the leads and their central plotline, inspired by real rock songs like Huey “Piano” Smith’s “Don’t You Just Know It?”, a song released in 1958 as the Rydell kids were starting their senior year. “Summer Nights” introduces the ten main characters, allowing each of them to ask questions that reveal their characters. Marty wants to know if this guy has a car, while Frenchy only wants to know if Sandy’s in love. Kenickie wants to know if the sex was rough, while Sonny only wants to know if the girl could fix him up with a friend. We see here and in the scene leading up to the song who each of the ten leads are – Kenickie and Rizzo, both damaged, beaten down, angry young adults; Roger, the clown; Jan, the cynic; Doody and Frenchy, the innocents; Sonny, the “dangerous” one; and Marty, the Material Girl.

And the song also establishes the central conflict of Grease and of the 1950s, that Danny is comfortable with sexuality while Sandy is lost – trapped? – in the fantasy of Perfect Love, thanks to the likes of Sandra Dee, Dee's handlers, and the movie studios (which were losing all their previous power, due in part to the burgeoning teen market). Some sources report that Rizzo’s dismissal of Sandy’s tale, “Cause he sounds like a drag,” was originally written, “Cause he sounds like a fag.” It’s certainly plausible, since Sandy describes a boy who barely touches her all summer, and in Rizzo’s world, that might well mean the boy is gay (or at least it would be a solid, cynical put-down of Sandy’s romantic story). After "Summer Nights," Rizzo suggests Sandy’s summer lover may be “a fairy.” Now that the characters are established and the story is underway, Grease takes a moment with “Those Magic Changes” to explore the show’s central themes, to underline the importance and centrality of music in this story and also in the show’s social commentary. Closely based on Paul Anka’s “Diana” and its distinctive bass line (you can actually sing “Magic Changes” to “Diana”), it also includes those distinctive falsettos vocal ornaments that pay homage to songs like The Diamonds’ comic doo-wop hit, “Lil Darlin’.” Doody starts off solo, then the girls join in, then the boys join in, then two of the boys take off on those falsetto riffs, giving the whole song the tang of improvisation, as if these kids are just fooling around between classes. This is part of what gives Grease -- in its original incarnation -- such a unique feel as a musical. "Magic Changes" is a song that connects love – but also sex in the form of the “magic changes” of puberty – to rock and roll. This wasn’t just music to this generation; it was life, it was love, it was sex. They charted their lives to the songs on the radio, the song they fell in love to, the song they first had sex to. And as “Magic Changes” reminds us, every 50s song is every other 50s song, since so many of them used those exact same chord changes, a chord progression seemingly invented just for them (though really coming from rhythm and blues). At that early moment in rock's evolution, it seems that all of rock and roll is “those magic changes” that Doody dreams of returning to him every night. The idea that all you need is a guitar to be a rock and roll star (perhaps in tribute to Bobby Bare’s satirical 1958 Elvis song, “All-American Boy,” (which was also referenced in Bye Bye Birdie) was a deeply ingrained part of teen culture. The next song in Grease, “Freddy My Love” is the show’s female doo-wop number, with a lead melody and rich harmonic back-up, closely based on “Eddie My Love” by The Tea Queens, while also slyly parodying The Shirelles’ “I Met Him on a Sunday” and Ronnie Spector’s “Be My Baby,” reinforcing old female stereotypes while also undermining and revising them. The driving triplet accompaniment here was a common beat in early rock and roll, introduced by Fats Domino for “Every Night About This Time.” They’re living in the 1950s, but these are women of the 60s. The idea of the other girls becoming back up singers for Marty shows us how much they love the girl doo-wop groups, a new phenomenon at that moment, which would become huge in the 60s. The Ronettes were the first “slutty” girl group to make it big singing rock and roll. They were what these girls wanted to be (to get the guys) and what the guys dreamed about getting. “Freddy, My Love” is a song about early feminism, about women being sexual and aggressive. But it’s also about the materialism of the 1950s, a mindset in which money is as good as (better than?) sex, and gifts are the only true measure of love. The idea of Marty singing to a guy stationed in Korea references the fact that Elvis was still in the Army overseas at this point, a sad fact for many teenagers.

“Greased Lightning” combines two of the three major cultural forces of the 50s, cars and rock and roll. Possibly inspired by The Cadillacs’ cocky “Speedo,” or Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me,” this is a companion piece to “Freddy My Love.” This is the guys’ perspective in the language of doo-wop: it’s all about sex, cars, and sex in cars. An article on Answers.com describes the provocative, lusty Chuck Berry, duckwalking through “You Can't Catch Me,” in the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock: “…his guitar as phallic looking a stage prop as anything seen on the screen this side of the bananas in a Carmen Miranda production number. Had a Black man ever before been permitted such a degree of sexual expression (and you can see the delightful, proud smugness on Berry's face, knowing what audience the movie was aimed at) in a movie intended for white audiences?” This is the unfettered sexuality that terrifies the 1950s adult world, and it does the same to Sandy. “Greased Lightning” is about America’s love affair with cars and teenagers’ love of speed. According to Rolling Stones’ excellent history Rock of Ages, “American automakers were asserting their products’ virtues of speed and power, turning the 1957 models into rocketship fantasies with nose cones, chrome grills, and razor sharp fins.” This song is not just a catalog of car accessories, but instead a real insight into the dreams of these guys. After all, this is not a real car Kenickie’s singing about, but an unreachable fantasy car (which is why it may be better if we don’t actually see the dream car onstage), the ultimate, luxury, high-performance, drag racing car, with high-priced accessories for speed and performance (lifters, fins, fuel injection), and also for automotive sex appeal (palomino dashboard, purple frenched tail lights, twin tail pipes). And it’s clear from the details that this will be a car intended for drag racing, the gladiator sport of 1950s teenagers, an extreme and dangerous sport pitting one man against one man, in what was sometimes a battle to actual death. (Kenickie acknowledges this danger, and even knows how to diminish it with a fuel-injection cut-off, which stops the flow of gasoline in the event of a crash, in order to lower the danger of an explosion.) Drag racing was illegal, sometimes deadly… and really sexy! Skill and success in drag racing could always get a guy laid, as Kenickie well knows (or at least imagines). But the song also tells us that Kenickie doesn’t really know much about drag racing or about customizing cars. A true drag racing enthusiast knows that the accessories Kenickie dreams of don’t all make sense together. For example, the “four-barrel quads” refers to a carburetor, but a car with fuel injection (as in his “fuel injection cut-off”) doesn’t have a carburetor – those two things would not be on the same car. And no one would chrome-plate connecting rods; chrome-plating was just for show and nobody can see connecting rods on a car. And though palomino leather was popular for car interiors, no one would put palomino leather on a dashboard. Finally, a kid in 1959 would either make his car look good or go fast; no kid had the money to do both (although you could argue that this is just a fantasy). In fact, a drag car that looked too good was the sure sign of a driver who wasn’t really serious about racing. It’s safe to assume that Kenickie probably knows very little about cars or drag racing, which gives this lyric far more complexity, humor, and character detail than it seems.

The last scene of Act I is set in a park late on a Friday night, where the kids have gathered to hang out, drink, smoke, and neck. Because the scene is one of the longest in the show, it’s also a prime example of the supreme, nearly invisible craft in the writing of the show’s dialogue. The script of Grease isn’t just a catalog of period references and influences; it’s also a carefully constructed ensemble character piece, revealing so much about all the main characters, usually subtextually. As an example, when Roger calls Jan “Petunia Pig,” she shoots back with “Oh yeah? Right here, Lardass!” This seemingly trivial throwaway line tells us so much about Jan: that she’s always been overweight (or at least for much of her life), that she’s regularly picked on, that she’s sensitive about her weight, and most importantly, that over time she has learned to defend herself, to give as good as she gets. A girl who is never mocked about her weight would not be that fierce in her comeback. All this is confirmed later in the scene when Roger asks Jan to the dance and she responds, “You kiddin’, Rog?” Her suspicious reply tells us that either guys never ask her out or maybe guys have asked her out in the past only as a cruel joke of some kind. She has to be reassured by Roger that he really wants to go out with her before she agrees. There’s lots going on with her under the surface, and the same is true of every one of the main characters. Roger and Jan’s song “Mooning” may have been inspired by The Mello-Kings’ “Tonight, Tonight” or The Skyliners’ “Since I Don’t Have You,” and though the other songs in Grease proclaim a new worldview of sex and love, this one also trashes the old worldview, reducing the tepid moon-spoon-June romance of the 30s and 40s to silly anachronism. It contrasts love today (1959) with love yesterday (their parents’), the physical versus the romantic, the play between the old definition of mooning as an over-sentimentalizing of young love, and the new definition of mooning as the act of baring one’s ass. Like “Summer Nights,” this is a song about the difference between chaste love and carnal love, the love Sandra Dee falls into versus the more physical love of naked, sweaty bodies. But this song goes further, into wickedly funny social satire; “Summer Nights” is about two kids, but “Mooning” is about the whole generation. And for Jan, this is safe sexuality, vaguely explicit, but also safely not serious.

As a companion piece to “Mooning,” Rizzo makes the comparison more personal with “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee,” an assault on Sandy’s false role models, a shot across the bow, making certain that Sandy knows that Rizzo knows that it’s all bullshit. The music is a classic, brilliantly imitative 1950s novelty song, with a meter and an introduction lovingly ripped off from David Seville’s “The Chipmunk Song,” the surprise hit of the 1958 Christmas season. But the laughs get even darker when you realize that every male movie star mentioned in the lyric was a closeted gay man, forced to live a lie by his studio. This is a song about sexual repression, false lives, and false role models, and it’s proof that Rizzo knows more than we thought, that she has genuine insight into the world around her. And this peek into her mind allows her to carry the weighty “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” later in Act II. The act ends with “We Go Together,” an archetypal Happy Teenager song, very closely modeled on The Kodaks’ “Oh Gee, Oh Gosh” and Lewis Lyman’s “I’m So Happy,” maybe with a little dash of Little Richard’s “Tutti Fruitti.” (You can actually sing “We Go Together” to both “I’m So Happy” and “Oh Gee, Oh Gosh.”) This is a song celebrating the nonsense syllables of early rock and roll, songs like “Gee” (The Crows), “Bip Bam” (The Drifters), “Oop Shoop,” (The Queens), “Sh-Boom” and “Zippity Zum” (both by The Chords). (Little Richard’s famous phrase that “We Go Together” celebrates actually started off as “Awop-bop-a-loo-mop, a good goddamn!”, followed by “Tutti Fruiti, good booty…” It was later cleaned up.) But the lyric of "We Go Together" succeeds as more than just send-up; it is also an articulation and celebration of this created family that nurtures and protects these kids, an artificial but also very real family that has through necessity replaced their dysfunctional, possibly abusive birth families. It is this family at the heart of the show’s plot which must survive the difficulties and obstacles of teenage life, and also which must be sustained even as its leader attempts to create a relationship outside the family for the first time. This lyric tells us – and these kids are telling each other – that these Ties That Bind are indeed strong enough to withstand the current conflicts, and the song’s reprise at the end of the show reminds us of the importance of that strength for these kids. Perhaps it was also telling audiences in 1972 that those ties will also get them through the cultural chaos of the 1970s, a theme picked up in the 1977 musical I Love My Wife. And that's just Act I. Act II picks up where Act I left off, with “Shakin’ at the High School Hop,” a loving tribute to Little Richard’s “Ready Teddy,” as well as many other legendary songs, like “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” (Big Joe Turner, then Elvis, and others), “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” (Jerry Lee Lewis), “High School Confidential” (Jerry Lee Lewis), and “At the Hop” (Danny and the Juniors). The song’s introductory chords come from Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance?” And “High School Confidential” actually contains the lyric, “Shakin’ at the high school hop…” There’s also be a touch of Bobby Darin’s “Splish Splash,” a song which references other early rock and roll songs, just as “High School Hop” catalogues the dances of the time, including The Chicken, The Stroll, The Shimmy, The Cha-Cha, The Walk, The Hully-Gully, The Hand Jive, The Stomp, The Calypso, The Slop, and The Bop. It also names several songs of the period, including “Alley Oop” and “Mr. Lee,” among others.

“It’s Raining on Prom Night” is a Connie Francis number, combining attributes from several of her “weeper” songs, including “Frankie” (with a spoken section), “Valentino,” “Carolina Moon,” and “Happy Days and Lonely Nights,” among others. The Latin beat recalls her fondness for recording Italian language ballads like the hit “Mama;” and “Frankie” even contains the idea of hiding tears, that later shows up in “Worse Things I Could Do.” "Prom Night" also has echoes of The Diamonds’ “Little Darlin’,” with its Latin beat and one spoken verse. According to some sources, this was the first Grease song Jacobs and Casey wrote, even before they had conceived the show, satirically putting the trivial and mundane at the center of a big, emotional lament. Far more than any other song in the score, this is parody more than tribute or invocation. And its sly reference to Maidenform bras recalls that brand’s long-standing ad campaigns that associated their bras with various female fantasy situations, like a romance novel in a magazine ad. Surely for the singer (or listener) of this song, the prom was a romantic fantasy as potent as any other. The Prom Scene is the centerpiece of Act II and, not surprisingly, almost the entire scene is accompanied by dance music. This is a scene that’s entirely about the rock and roll. And the centerpiece of the scene is “Born to Hand Jive,” with its now universally famous choreography. The Hand Jive was invented for the Johnny Otis song, “Willie and the Hand Jive,” which hit the charts in 1958 and stayed in the Top Ten for sixteen weeks. This “Hand Jive” also takes inspiration (and its bass line) from Bo Diddley’s self-titled song, “Bo Diddley,” with its famous beat (the “hambone”) that would accompany so many of Diddley’s songs. The beat is relentless, dangerous, wild abandon, the beat of sex. Once again, rock and roll is sex. Johnny Casino and the Gamblers are an example of the thousands of garage bands that appeared in the 50s. The lyric of “Hand Jive” clearly tells us that anyone can be a rock star if they’ve got the Beat in them, and the fact that everyone knows how to Hand Jive means everyone has the Beat. This was the beginning of the democratization of pop music that would continue into the 60s. Grace Palladino writes in her book, Teenagers: An American History, “If unremarkable kids like Dion Di Mucci and his group, the Belmonts, who hailed from the Bronx, could make it on American Bandstand, [teenagers] reasoned, then anyone with talent and determination had the same chance to succeed.” “Beauty School Dropout,” Frenchy’s wacky nightmare of the misogynist mainstream “real world,” was inspired (musically) by songs like The Penguins’ classic “Earth Angel.” But this scene also references the 1957 film Tammy and the Bachelor, with Debbie Reynolds. Just before “Beauty School Dropout” starts, Frenchy wishes for a guardian angel “like in that Debbie Reynolds movie.” In the film, Aunt Renie (Mildred Natwick) plays the role of Tammy's (merely metaphorical) fairy godmother, who transforms her into a captivating Southern belle, looking just like the portrait of an ancestor of this elite Southern family. She even gives Tammy the ancestor’s dress to wear, so she can win the heart of her love. This is the fantasy Frenchy wants. And of course, it’s what will eventually happen to Sandy, being taken under the wing of other women, given new clothes, and taught new manners, though all in a hard-core, rock-and-roll kinda way… And it’s also a smart parody of those psychological dream sequences in old-fashioned musical dramas like Oklahoma!, West Side Story, Lady in the Dark, and others, in which the leading lady works through her dilemma in the form of a dream. The joke here is that Frenchy doesn’t get the answer she wants from her dream, because Grease isn’t an old-fashioned musical.

Danny’s big character song (sadly replaced in the film), “Alone at a Drive-In Movie,” is a delicious tribute to and parody of the teen laments of early rock and roll, including The Penguins’ “Earth Angel” (you can sing “Drive-In Movie” to the original recording of “Earth Angel”), The Platters’ “The Great Pretender,” The Flamingos’ “Would I Be Cryin’?”, and Johnny Ray’s “Cry.” It is a classic male doo-wop song, with its independent bass line and falsetto tenor floating up above the lead melody. The song works both as a musical theatre “I Want” character song, and also as an authentic 50s rock lament. This moment couldn’t be clearer: Sandy may want acceptance, (self-)love, self-knowledge, but Danny just wants sex. These two worlds have to find an accommodation, and they will in the show’s finale. (The replacement song in the film, “Sandy,” isn’t a bad song, but it doesn’t achieve half of what “Alone at a Drive-In Move” does, textually, thematically, or musically, and it’s far too introspective for a kid like Danny Zuko.) But this song also works on a second level, as a cultural commentary on the power of drive-in movies in teen culture in the 50s. Cars had been changing sex since the 1920s, but by the 50s, more teenagers had more access to more cars than ever before, giving them the privacy they craved on a regular basis. Drive-in movies had been created as family entertainment, and between 1943 and 1953, more than 2,900 drive-in theatres opened in America, the total reaching nearly 5,000 by 1958. But once television stole the family audience, drive-in owners targeted their marketing exclusively at teens, while small, low-budget studios started cranking out material specifically for this new niche market, creating “teen exploitation” films that drastically changed and radicalized teenagers’ perception of themselves and each other. Drive-ins became a place to cruise for girls, hang with the “wrong crowd,” get drunk and get laid, awkwardly, in the back seat. These films opened teenaged eyes to sex, violence, and other various vices like never before, inadvertently creating a new, more sophisticated, more cynical teen market. The fake movie dialogue in the scene leading up to “Alone at the Drive-In Movie” lampoons the two most prevalent genres of drive-in films: horror movies (a comic mix of I Was a Teenage Werewolf and those paranoid 1950s “science run amok” flicks, like 1954’s Them!), crossed with drag racing movies. Strangely enough, television had also come close to killing radio, in ratings and advertising revenue, until radio did what the drive-ins did by targeting teenagers.

“Rock and Roll Party Queen” is another song (like “Magic Changes” and “Hand Jive”) that reminds us that Grease isn’t primarily about Danny and Sandy; it’s about rock and roll and how it impacted American sex. This is a tribute to the Everly Brothers and their perfect-thirds harmonies, modeled on “Wake Up, Little Susie” (a song about having sex at the drive-in) and other Everly Brothers hits, as well as songs like the Dell-Vikings’ “Come Go With Me.” The lyric says more than it seems, describing a party girl that all the kids “know” (in the Biblical sense?), that they talk about, who stays out late with boys, and who will soon be seventeen (the age of sexual consent, which of course means she’s currently under the age of consent), etc. The Party Queen is the fully sexual girl that Rizzo is and Sandy may become. Here, in this scene, the song both comments on Rizzo’s fears of pregnancy and foreshadows Sandy’s realization that she’s too repressed sexually. I told you there was more going on in Grease than you thought. This scene also shows us another aspect of 50s teen culture, the Basement Party. Grace Palladino writes, “If their parents could afford it, they followed the experts’ advice to fix up party rooms to keep young teenagers safe at home . . . complete with a television set, soft drink bar, and plenty of room for dancing.” Jan hosts this party and Marty hosts the pajama party in Act I – their parents clearly know this philosophy. But the scene is important dramatically because it’s the first time we see both Rizzo and Kenickie grapple with real, serious emotions, revealing a vulnerability that is both unfamiliar and uncomfortable for both of them. Rizzo’s big Eleven O’Clock Number (the big character-revealing song just before the finale) is the now classic “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” possibly inspired by The Tune Weavers’ “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby,” a 50s song with a similar “broken heart” theme and beat. Rizzo is (spiritually if not actually) one of the Beats (commonly – and derisively – called Beatniks by the mainstream to suggest that they were Communists), a group most famously represented by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who in the 1950s rejected mainstream values, morality, and art, trying to break through the façade of polite society to a more honest, more authentic way of living. “Worse Things” contains the entirety of 1950s youth (and Beat) morality in its lyric. Like everything else in Grease, Rizzo represents that transition from the 50s to the 60s. She’d like us to think she’s as authentic as they come, but she hides Kenickie’s paternity from him and she hides her hurt from her friends. It’s only when Sandy calls Rizzo on her “mask” that Rizzo sings “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” beginning a two-song arc of revelation for Sandy.  In a weird way, Rizzo becomes a Wise Wizard figure to Sandy... Structurally,"Worst Things" links these two women. In each of the three verses, Rizzo attacks Sandy for her perceived sins – being a tease (leading Danny on but not delivering), being self-pitying (most notably in “Raining on Prom Night”), and being judgmental (in the scene leading up to the song). And as often happens in real life, the sins Rizzo sees in Sandy are also Rizzo’s sins as well. This is a song built on very real, raw emotions, a song that finally reveals the character of Rizzo late in Act II as vulnerable, insecure, easily hurt. The audience may not see this coming but it fills out and explains everything Rizzo has done over the course of the story. Almost at the end of the show, we see that she probably was in love with Zuko (only to see him taken away) and is now clearly in love with Kenickie (who she has just cut off from her). She sees no Happily Ever After for herself. All she thinks she can do is put up a brave front and hide her insecurity. But that also walls her off from any real emotional connection to anyone. If she won't allow herself to cry in front of anyone, how can she ever get close? And the payoff of the last line is the most telling: none of the normal “crimes” of dating are the worst crime; the worst crime is showing vulnerability. That's really good writing and a really good character song. It's so sad and it says so much in such seemingly simple language, without ever being simplistic.

“Worse Things” segues directly to its companion piece, Sandy's parallel self-evaluation, the reprise of "Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee," in which Sandy finally sees and accepts the truth in Rizzo’s metaphor, finally recognizing that she must reject artificial values imposed by others, so she can find her own way. But Sandy only comes to this realization because “Worse Things” opened her up to the idea of authenticity as a fundamental value; now she can act on that newfound wisdom in her reprise (just like in all the ancient hero myths). Tim Riley argues in his book Fever that early rock and roll delivered a powerful message to its listeners: “The challenge of building an original identity, rather than accepting a received identity predicated on the values of their parents, became a necessary life passage.” Like all the best theatre songs, Sandy makes a decision in the “Sandra Dee” reprise, and the plot takes a turn toward its final destination. Sandy must decide who she is herself and what she values; she must embrace all of who she is, including her sexuality. She now realizes that only when she is true to herself can she be happy with Danny, and this final revelation will lead us to the show’s rowdy, playful finale “All Choked Up” (sadly replaced in the film by the less carnal disco number “You're the One That I Want”). And again, we can see Jacobs and Casey’s lyric writing craft here in their most conventional theatre song, as they effortlessly spin out multiple internal rhymes without ever disrupting a line or thought:

Look at me, There has to be Something more than what they see. Wholesome and pure, Also scared and unsure, A poor man’s Sandra Dee.

Poor even rhymes (unnoticed) with pure and unsure... The bridge is loaded with long e and long i sounds, with a close interior rhyme at the end, in has and last:

When they criticize And make fun of me, Can’t they see the tears in my smile? Don’t they realize There’s just one of me, And it has to last me a while?

And the rhyming accelerates in the last verse, giving the song real momentum as Sandy marches toward triumph (very similar to the end of "On the Steps of the Palace"):

Sandy, you Must start anew. Don’t you know what you Must do? Hold your head high, Take a deep breath and sigh, Goodbye To Sandra Dee.

Here again, some usually unnoticed treasure, in the powerful alliteration of Hold your head high, as each successive line climbs musically higher and higher to the climax. But this song isn’t just about Sandy saying goodbye to her false idols; it’s also about America saying goodbye to the false idols of the 1950s, saying goodbye to the turning of its collective blind eye away from the hidden horrors of the decade: rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, teen pregnancy and abortion, prescription drug abuse in the suburbs, and so much more. Sandy has to face herself and find her own authenticity, but so too does America.

The rowdy “All Choked Up,” the show’s finale, is clearly inspired by Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” and perhaps also by Little Willie John’s “Fever” (later recorded by Peggy Lee in 1958), not only paying tribute to the music but also to the content of “Great Balls of Fire,” with the idea of love causing sickness. Here Grease shows us the turmoil ahead in the 1960s, as sexual roles are reversed. Now that Sandy is a sexual being, she can finally sing real rock and roll. Now Sandy is the aggressor, a lesson she learned from rock and roll, a social trend that would soon push boundaries further and further, from Tina Turner’s “A Fool in Love” well into the 1970s. This is the beginning of feminism. Now American women could be sexual too. Many of those who still object to the show’s ending miss the point of the show and may be unconsciously still caught up in gender stereotypes from the 50s that remain pervasive today. If a boy is sexually aggressive (as in “Greased Lightning”) he’s just a guy. If a girl is sexually aggressive, she’s a slut. Have we really come all that far since 1959? But notice that in the lyric, Sandy tells Danny (and us) that she is still not ready to sleep with him. Sandy may have changed the way she looks, she may now celebrate the curves of her body rather than hiding them behind poodle skirts, and she may now have a more progressive philosophy of sexuality, but no matter how dramatically Danny pleads, she’s still not “going all the way” just yet; that part of her has not changed fundamentally. She has not become a slut. But perhaps even more significant than Sandy’s new sexualized rock and roll persona in “All Choked Up” is her line after the song: Danny asks her if she’s still mad at him and she answers, “Nah, fuck it.” That this is the first time we’ve heard Sandy talk like that is certainly important, but even more so is what her answer means. The phrase is not just obscene; it’s also a universally recognized idiom with two related meanings. First, it says to the world that the speaker just doesn’t care anymore. Sandy’s not just cussing here; she’s publicly rejecting all the values of her past life, in particular the idea that sex is “dirty,” or that Danny is a "bad boy." She’s transitioning from the 50s to the 60s. The other, parallel meaning  of "fuck it" is that regardless of the consequences, the speaker is charging ahead, and that’s part of this moment as well.

But it goes even deeper than that. Fuck is the granddaddy of all cuss words, the word that draws a line in the moral sand. Especially in 1959 – but even still today – fuck is a word that separates the “nice” (i.e., conforming) people from the “bad” (i.e., less repressed) people. Here at the end of our story, Sandy has picked sides in one of America’s great Culture Wars, and so her journey moves out of the personal and into the political, as she utters this infamous word that will stand at the very center of the counterculture of the 1960s, a word Lenny Bruce will go to jail for. It’s a great way to end this story, and it’s also why a cleaned-up, sanitized Grease is worse than no Grease at all… All of this is why I love Grease so much, why I connect to the songs and the characters so powerfully. The whole thing has always struck me as extraordinarily truthful and honest. And so, it's always bummed me out when people dismiss the show as shallow crap. It's not. As I just proved. Long Live the Musical Scott This essay is a revised version of part of one chapter from my book Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musicals. from The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre http://newlinetheatre.blogspot.com/2018/12/whats-that-playing-on-radio.html

Possible Solution?

The Ethnic Discovery Project

    As a young girl, I grew up in a loving household where my parents made sure that my siblings and I were cultured and knew where we came from. As much as they, my parents, could. And I, being the typical naive, young child, I thought that what they told was all there was to our heritage and culture. That my family’s history began with slavery and we’ve always been from the United States. Once I started getting older, I noticed that classmates of mine, white and other people of color, were able to trace back their lineage and family trees miles farther than I was able to. Other African American youths suffer from this confusion too, and in turn can affect them in different ways. 

In the black community, there is an issue with self-identification, in which we don’t know where we come from because of the culture lost during the slave trade.  More specifically, Black people in America face an identity crisis through loss of ancestry, negative stereotypes and images, and low self-esteem. The issue developed once the first Africans were brought to America in 1619. Along with being forced into labor, they were also forced to drop their African customs and cultures. This issue became more prevalent during the civil rights movement because that was, arguably, the birth of Black Nationalism. Black people in America face an identity crisis through loss of ancestry which was scientifically proven to contribute to low-self esteem. I propose that we create a non-profit organization of people who will dedicate time to searching archives and documents, specifically those that are made by, kept by, and created by other African Americans, for people to discover more about their personal heritage, thus finally filling the void that was created by slavery. We could build our own genealogy site, or offer to work with existing ones. This resource would be a cheap, maybe even free, source for curious people who want to know where their family is from, and who right fully deserves it. I think that people who have faced hundreds of years of oppression, racism, and discrimination are owed a lot for their perseverance. However, this resource wouldn’t be limited to only people who identify as African-American, but it would also be for the benefit of  all mixed-raced people.

   Black America has dealt with a lot of oppression since slavery, before and after it was abolished. Some significant events to note are the L.A. riots that were triggered by the brutal beating of Rodney King, the recent police brutality against black people in the past decade, and the gang violence within the black youth, across the country. With the constant fighting within the community and outside of it, it’s very difficult for things to get done to positively uplift out people. Thus, the self-esteem and mental well being of our people is affected. It’s no secret in the black community that our racial identity directly affects our dignity and self-respect. I have known plenty of people, including myself, who felt as if they were worth less because they were born black or a person of color, almost as if being white was so much easier and our lives would actually be worth living. The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism agrees and propose that, “Understanding identity, or individuals' beliefs about the groups to which they belong can help explain variation in their physical and mental health, educational attainment, income levels, and wealth.” (Mason) A general definition of Identity would be a distinguished idea of an individual through certain traits and qualities. The difference between being black in America and being black in Africa is that Black America is only color but Black in Africa is surrounded by language, cuisine, and customs, that many people of my generation and many generations before us haven’t gotten the chance to experience or discover. The Encyclopedia of African American Society states that, “The earliest studies that measured racial identity among African Americans were originally attempts to study black self-esteem. These studies were based on the concept of "reflective appraisal"—the idea that people develop a self-concept based on the way that other people view them.” (Jaynes)

To go further into the actual source of this self-hatred, we can discuss the role that stereotypes and the false representations of African Americans in the United States. White people further influenced the questioning of who we are, by making us feel like less than people. Things like the Three-Fifths compromise (which was a decision agreed upon in 1787 that stated that for population counting purposes for the House of Representatives, slaves would count as 3/5ths of a person or 3 out of every 5 slaves as a person) and not being able to vote in a country we were forced in are just a few examples. Additionally, black youth aren’t being taught the whole truth about slavery. They are learning the watered-down version of American History that is meant to spark patriotism in young one’s minds. I viewed a film in my African American history classed titled: Ethnic Notions: Black Images in the White Mind. The film’s narrator mentioned

“Contained in these cultural images is the history of our national conscience striving to reconcile the paradox of racism in a nation founded on human equality - a conscience coping with this profound contradiction … through caricature. What were the consequences of these caricatures? How did they mold and mirror the reality of racial tensions in America for more than 100 years?” (Notions)

Now think about this. How could this nation have been founded on equality, when it literally was not founded on equality. Additionally, The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History by Colin A. Palmer explains,

“In the history of race relations in the United States, stereotypes preceded and accompanied the origins and legalization of slavery. Equipped with stereotypes, whites fastened the dogma of inferiority on Africans and African Americans. With the termination of slavery, stereotypes were then extensively employed to legitimate segregationist policies. Throughout the course of American history, such ingrained stereotypes have subverted black identity and seriously undermined the formation of a biracial society based on egalitarian practices. “ (Palmer)

Images like the Mamie, and exaggerated black face were prevalent before the 1960s. After that, black people stopped viewing themselves under the white’s eyes. Because of the civil rights movement, black people began to care more about their people as a whole rather than an “every man for himself” type of mentality. The Encyclopedia of African American Society found that “In fact, when black researchers began to develop their own theories of racial identity, they found that African Americans' sense of self came mainly from the messages they received from parents and friends, not the negative views of whites.” (Jaynes)

To address this issue, I suggest we create a non-profit organization, that’s goal is to search the archives, documents, and records of African Americans from 1619 (the first slaves brought to America in Jamestown, Virginia) to now, to help people discover more about themselves, the families they came from, and the cultures they may have lost during history. The difference between this organization and other ancestry and genealogy sites (ancestry.com, 23andme.com, etc.) is that this won’t stop with finding out where these people’s DNA leads to and is made up of but it will also teach them about the cultures of that area, and hopefully connect them with other people from there. It would be ideal if this organization could partner with a genealogy website, to provide these people with discounted DNA tests or maybe even free. If that is unable to happen, it would be in our best interest to find a laboratory or a scientist willing to do this for little to no money/profit. This organization would mostly have to rely on government funding, fundraisers, and donations because they wouldn’t be selling anything or making a profit. This would be specifically a non-profit, because its main goal would be to enrich the lives of our people and make them more comfortable in their own skin, even when surrounded by the constant negativity around them. This organization could have many benefits, such as creating a larger sense of community, because its black people helping other black people discover themselves and open their minds to a whole new side of them that they hadn’t discovered. There could be offices in place with high populations/concentrations of black people and mixed-race (with black) people, for convenience for them. The amount of offices would depend of the money and revenue that the organization gathers. If they were only able to have a few, let’s say 6 offices with one being the headquarters, would be 1)New York, New York, that has the highest number of black people (at 8,175,133 people!)  2)Detroit, Michigan, which has the highest percentage of the total population of the city at 84.3%, 3) Jackson, Mississippi, 4) Miami Gardens, Florida, 5) Beaumont, Texas, and finally 6) Los Angeles, California.  Unfortunately, the West coast would only have only one official office because the majority of black Americans live in the southern part of the United States and the East coast. Los Angeles, like New York, is a “melting pot” (for lack of a better term), with many different kinds of people, such as mixed-race people and immigrants living there. The headquarters would be in New York, because I feel as though by serving the most amount of black people in America, they would dedicate a lot of time to the cause.  We could collaborate with AfricanAncestry.com,  which is a genealogy website dedicated to find African DNA lineages. On their website they claim that, “African Ancestry uses the world’s largest database of African DNA lineages to determine your country and ethnic group of origin, all with a simple swab of your cheek.” (AfricanAncestry.com homepage) Having a black-owned and black-ran genealogy testing service would provide more credibility to the organization, and attract more black people.

    Unfortunately, African Ancestry’s tests range anywhere from $274.00 (for 2 or $299.00 for one) to $680.00. That is an astronomical price to pay for something that should be in your right as a human being to know. On the website, 23andme.com's services’ prices range from $99 for just the ancestry service to $199 for the “Health + Ancestry” Service. Though, along with ancestrydna.com, they are known for giving somewhat vague results occasionally. ( i.e. broadly sub-Saharan African, or broadly East Asian) The main issues with genealogy test is that it doesn’t address the whole issue that we are presented with. Sure, we get the satisfaction of learning a little about where our ancestors we’re from up until today, but it doesn’t connect us to the culture in anyway. There are also things that have nothing to do with genealogy, but more about the identification itself and not the physically scientific aspect of things. The Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity, or the MIBI for short, is a tool used to asses racial and ethic identity among African Americans in the United States. Patrick L. Mason, a Professor and the Director of African American Studies at the University of Florida states that, “According to the MIBI and the model on which it is based, the Multidimensional Model of Racial Identity (MMRI), the unique sociocultural history of black Americans both psychologically unifies the group and creates variability in the ways blacks identify with their race. To capture similarities and distinctions across blacks, the MIBI measures racial identity along three dimensions: (1) centrality, (2) regard, and (3) ideology” (Mason).  The issues with this test and others like this is that it only focuses on blacks personal identification in comparison to other blacks, which doesn’t really have anything to do with the issue, which is not knowing the actual places we come from. These tests only asses the effect of the problem. That doesn’t change the fact that it could be very eye opening and interesting to observe, it just isn’t enough.

   Overall, we have plenty of resources to make this proposal happen, however, our current political climate might prevent this from being an easy task. As long as we keep advancing through history and fighting for each other and our rights, anything is possible. Obviously, the psychological well being of African Americans wouldn’t magically become 100% better after my proposed solution, but, it is a huge step in the right direction, and hopefully others think so too.