Pink Ladies replace their leather jackets with woke cloaks in new Grease TV show
The Grease remake is a social critique of 2023 set in 1954.
When it comes to franchises, Hollywood has more than McDonald’s, but this latest offering is pretty morish.
The Rise of the Pink Ladies is a McChicken meal for the soul, with plenty of Easter eggs scattered around the screenplay for fans of the Grease “universe”.
It’s been 45 years since the world was introduced to Olivia Newton-John’s musical metamorphosis from squeaky clean Sandy into a snatched, leather-clad smoker with hair crunchier than a hot chip.
Grease is back, and so too is Sandy’s merry, yet motley crew of pink-tinged frenemies – The Pink Ladies. The gin to the T-Birds’ tonic.
The Rise of the Pink Ladies is the latest in a small but mighty value meal of spinoffs from the 1978 film and its earlier Broadway inspiration.
The musical turned movie-musical was great, but neither iteration held a flame to the delightful 1980s dish that was Grease 2. A film so camp, overacted and bonkers that it’s surprising the ribbon of the last remaining VHS copy didn’t disintegrate from cringe alone. Thankfully it is now preserved for eternity online via streaming services. Which is where you’ll find this new made-for-the-digital-age prequel.
The Rise of the Pink Ladies has been described by some critics, like USA Today, as “a confetti cannon to your face”. It’s an apt summary but there is just something about this series that means I cannot stop bingeing. It’s more like the aforementioned McChicken meal at 2am after a big night out. I couldn’t stop. I then went back and reacquainted myself with Grease 2 after polishing off the new miniseries which is like Glee for those who got a B+ in theatresports.
The highlight is the introduction of Frenchy.
We meet her here when she’s a rebellious, opinionated tween after moving from New York to California a year earlier. She’s finding it difficult to fit in but meets Rizzo who teases her but defends her from bullies. Young Frenchy is played to perfection by newcomer Madison Lagares.
The young actress reportedly watched the original film 38 times to nail Frenchy’s unique tone and mannerisms.
But Michelle Pfieffer’s turn as the “tom boy”, pedal-pushing wearing, nerd-loving Stephanie from the sequel is what really compelled me to watch this series.
She made pink cool for Millennials before Millennial Pink was a sparkle in the eyes of interior decorators all those years later as they set about styling the headquarters of “girl bosses”.
“Cheers to the next generation of Pink Ladies,” Pfeiffer posted to her 2.8 million Instagram fans. Her turn in Grease 2 as the leader of the pink pack was iconic so her endorsement of the new series was promising.
“Yeah I’m free every day, it’s in the Constitution,” she said in Grease 2 before declining a date and being labelled as “Miss Independent”, which, in the 50s was an insult.
The Rise of the Pink Ladies in 2023 charts the genesis of this now infamous “girl gang”.
It’s the tale of four girls who don’t fit into any of the cliques at Rydell High in the early 1950s. The cast is a bunch of relative unknowns – all supremely talented actors and singers. They pull off the cheesy dialogue and narrative arcs about teenage sex and diversity (or lack thereof in the US at the time), but the plethora of musical interludes are like unmelted Kraft Singles – good in theory, but leave a weird aftertaste. They highlight the lack of vigour in the script-writing process.
Jane (Marisa Davila) is the goodie-two shoes new girl who spends the summer heavy petting with the most popular boy in school, Buddy (Jason Schmidt). She helps him plan a pep rally to bolster his popularity and is then tossed back down the social ladder when it emerges she may have “gone all the way” with this pretty, rich, white boy. Olivia (Cheyenne Isabel Wells) is also shamed for her sexuality after an “incident” with a teacher the year before. Then we have Nancy (Tricia Fukuhara) who would rather talk about Balenciaga than boys and Cynthia (Ari Notartomaso) who is kicked out of the T-Birds for being a girl. The four bond over their social displacement and start a campaign to get Jane elected to the student council.
In the movie Grease, the Pink Ladies were led by Rizzo who snuck out to “get my kicks while I’m still young enough to get ‘em”. The girls in the series instead take their cues from Stockard Channing in her West Wing First Lady-era where she played First Lady Abbey Bartlet.
Instead of getting a “hickey from Kenickie” and piercing their ears with pins, they are having late-night “emergency campaign meetings”, albeit with some sneaky swigs of tequila and secret pashes with new boys.
Jane is running against Buddy to be class president but the odds are stacked against her. She’s from an immigrant family; he’s in the club (literally the sporting club that has only been “accepting Italians for five years”).
The tension of modern day storylines sometimes falls slack with the bobbysock-wearing era. Especially around issues of race that have a more sinister undercurrent. But the “bits” that mock the patriarchy are clever. An opening scene showing the Valley of the Dolls-era housewives who spend their days drinking while pregnant, taking fat pills, smoking and using the washing machine’s spin cycle for curious means, is a rollicking musical montage.
The Rise of the Pink Ladies at times strikes the right note and offers some genuinely funny social commentary of both now and then, but lacks a little more bite and sass than the original. All this is probably why I returned to Grease 2. This miniseries is the pure, good-intentioned little sister to the hormonal siblings of the Grease family. The pink jackets are there but the leather – and all it’s meant to symbolise – is sadly missing.
Grease: The Rise of the Pink Ladies is streaming now on Paramount+ (so too is Grease 2).
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