The disturbing theory that changes the meaning of ‘Grease’
Upbeat movie musicals don’t usually lend themselves to dark fan theories surrounding the death of a lead character, but some fans are convinced that Grease’s Sandy, played by Olivia Newton-John, actually died at the start of the film.
When Danny (John Travolta) dons a leather jacket and sings, “I saved her life, she nearly drowned”, on ‘Summer Nights’ it might just be the most cheerful use of Chekhov’s gun in cinema history. As the fan theory goes, when Sandy and Danny first meet in the summer before high school – he didn’t save her life at all. In fact, she drowned, and the rest of the film is nothing more than an elaborate oxygen-starved delusion in her final moments.
Questions about the plausibility of that plot are pretty easily dismissed when you remember that the film ends with the couple driving off in a flying car into the sky. Grease was always delightfully heavy on the fantasy sequences on songs like ‘Beauty School Dropout’ and ‘Greased Lightin’’, but when you examine them a little further, they’re arguably just souped-up dream sequences too.
The first features the pink-haired Frenchie lamenting her dismal future as told by Frankie Avalon’s character, a sharp-tongued angel (“No customer would go to you unless she was a hooker,” being one of his best barbs), who apparently is an angel with a vested interest in the job prospects of teenagers. The second sees the T-Birds fantasising about the potential of the car they’re fixing up, the same one that will carry Danny and Sandy off into the sunset in the film’s finale.
If we’re to take all of Grease’s musical numbers as clues, ‘Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee’ holds the most glaring. In an emotive number, Sandy stoically instructs herself: “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.”
If Danny didn’t manage to save her, this could be the moment she realises she’s headed for death. Within the films actual plot, this is just her saying goodbye to herself as a preppy outcast, trading a good-girl persona for one who smokes and wears catsuits. But for firm believers of the fan theory, it’s another sign of self-awareness as she engineers a happier alternate reality in her dying moments.
However, Jim Jacobs, who wrote the original book and musical with Warren Casey, quickly dismissed the creative conspiracy that Sandy was dead for the entire film, telling TMZ: “Whoever made up the theory must have been on acid. Sandy was very much alive.”
Still, it’s interesting that such a dark theory could even gain traction in such an intentionally light, family-friendly film. But it certainly goes some way to explaining the bizarre ending, which was a total departure from reality that some fans still can’t quite wrap their heads around.
