Was Grease Really The Word?

For the 45th anniversary of the movie Grease, we gave it the Two Drink Cinema treatment. Lee did his usual in depth analysis of the story and the writing behind the movie and Brett gave us all the info on its cultural impact (spoiler alert, that’s significant). But one of the questions that came up is whether or not Grease really is the word, or at least was it the word in the 1950s?

The Short Answer

No. 

The Longer Answer

While “grease” wasn’t used in a slang way and certainly wasn’t used as “the word”, which implies something cool and popular, the term ‘greaser’ was definitely popular and the T-Birds in the movie Grease are certainly greasers. 

The greaser subculture was prevalent in the 1950s in the US. It’s often related to ‘hood’ being ‘from the ‘hood’ or neighbourhood, but where the greasers differed from the hoods was in their look. The greasers looked, well, exactly like Danny and Kenickie; leather jackets, white shirts, blue jeans and a big handful of grease in their hair. The nickname greaser comes from the grease in their hair but also from their love of cars. Working on hot rods was a common hobby for the greasers so motor grease was often a part of their life and their look. 

How this relates to the movie is the movie’s focus on the teen issues of the 1950s, and the youth’s desires to break out of the prevalence of conformity present in post-WWII America. The teenagers of the 1950s certainly aren’t alone in struggling against conformity, nor are they alone in having the kind of angst we see in the movie Grease, but it’s the generation that we’ve seen represented in media pretty heavily. There’s Grease of course, but we’ve got long-standing successes of American Graffiti and a few series of Happy Days too, with their resident grease The Fonz thrown in. 

The Final Word 

So while “Grease is the word” wasn’t a thing in the 1950s, grease was a huge part of the youth culture of the time, whether in your hair or in your motor and the greasers who favoured it are a great presentation of the life and struggles of the youth of the time. 

If you want to hear more of our analysis of Grease, check out the podcast episode below.