Headscratchers / Grease

• The tropes page says this film shows an idealized '50s through rose-colored glasses. Thinking of the film (the version some people remember best), this never got this impression at all for some, it seems like it shows a somewhat unpleasant view of the '50s. The theme of the (non-musical) parts of the film seems to be Peer Pressure - that all the kids are not so bad underneath, but are compelled to act like jerks in order to look "cool". They are unable to interact with a nice girl like Sandy because it would cause them to lose face, but once she gives in and conforms to the group, they accept her as one of their own. The message seemed to be that in the '50s, high school peer pressure was brutal and nice guys/girls finish last unless they learn how to act tough. How exactly is this idealizing the '50s? It sure didn't make anyone want to attend Rydell High!
  • It's not idealized, so much as it's romanticized. And you're looking at it from a modern perspective — at the time it was written, it wasn't about Sandy "conforming to the group" to be accepted, but about her breaking away from the conformity of the goody-two-shoes ideal. The "rose-colored glasses" bits are that the tough, leather-clad greasers were really just harmless, friendly dudes instead of, say, a violent gang. Stuff like that.
  • Also, the original play was conceived as a parody of '50s teen movies where the bad boy had to clean up his act to win the good girl's heart - they just solved the equation the other way around. The play's original audience (teens in the '50s, youngish adults in the late '60s when it first came out) would have gotten the joke, although later viewers probably didn't.
• How would Frenchie get into beauty school without finishing high school first? Did vocational schools back then not care whether someone had a high school diploma?
  • In the 1950s, high school graduation rates averaged around 60-65%. Vocational schools were very often where dropouts went.
• Frenchie has a television set in her bedroom, in the fifties. At the time, only rich people would have more than one television, much less one for their child's bedroom. What gives?
  • It is 1959, and judging by the rest of her house the family isn't super broke. TV sets were somewhat cheaper in the late '50s than the early-to-mid fifties so she might be able to save up or her parents might have gotten it as a reward for her or something. Or maybe she just commandeered the family set for her sleepover. Or her parents bought a television and simply didn't like it.
• When Sandy met Danny for the first time in the movie version, is she supposed to have been on summer vacation from her school in Australia? Because it wouldn't have been summer there, it would have been winter. And she would probably have had only about two weeks off school during what's summer vacation for American students. She's Australian! Why wasn't she in school? Unless they really had their whole important meaningful summer love over the two weeks she would have had off school, and then her family also decided to stay in the U.S. after two weeks, which seems a little weird. It doesn't make sense!
  • Public school holidays for winter in Australia are usually 2 weeks. However, private schools typically get an extra week and often have the last Friday and/or first Monday off as well. So she could have had a 3 week trip over holidays. However, I went to a fancy private school in the 80s and it was fairly common for super rich families to just pull their child out of school for an entire term to go on an extended trip overseas. Maybe Sandy's secretly rich?