Etcetera OG ✎ COMPLETE

; my childhood loves: 'grease 2'

I've told you about some of my childhood loves before (CATS, Anastasia, etc.), but instead of doing the same thing I did with those two this time around, I'm going to share with you a super fun assignment that I got to do last year for my first year seminar. The assignment was to write a "notes" essay about whatever we wanted. (A "notes" essay is one written in list form. Apparently.)

So, funny story about that: the example that my professor had used was the term "camp." I managed to completely misinterpret everything he said during that class period, and I thought that our topic had to be something that could be considered camp. Naturally, then, I picked Grease 2, one of my all-time favorite movies that has been my one of my favorites for almost my entire life.

Here is that paper. Can we discuss that this is something I actually turned in for a grade? I feel like I wrote a BuzzFeed article. Anyway, enjoy. (Also, my professor loved it. So, yeah. Got a fantastic grade.)

Grease 2 Notes Essay

1.Grease 2 is the 1982 sequel to musical-turned-film Grease (1978), which starred Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta as the story's leading couple. The sequel reprises only a few of the original cast members - mostly side characters - and is led by Michelle Pfieffer and Maxwell Caulfield as Stephanie Zinone and Michael Carrington.

2. The sequel tells essentially the same story that its predecessor did, only flip-flopped. Instead of the leading lady having to change everything about herself in order to be good enough for the guy, it's the guy who has to become what the girl wants.

And while this may not seem like the greatest lesson to be learned from a movie, you can always look at Grease 2 as an A+ effort in the feminist movement. Stephanie is quoted saying, "Maybe I'm tired of being someone's chick." For those of you who have never seen the movie (a tragedy, really), that quote is referencing the fact that, as a Pink Lady, Stephanie is "T-Bird property." Which she's obviously sick of being. Ergo, feminism.

3. You could safely consider Grease 2 a prime example of camp, as well. In fact, as soon as I learned what that term even meant, Grease 2 was the very first thing that popped into my head.

4. Camp, according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a) something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate, or out-of-date as to be considered amusing, and/or b) a style or mode of personal or creative expression that is absurdly exaggerated and often fuses elements of high and popular culture.

5. In other words: Grease 2 in a nutshell. If you ask me, its campiness really adds to its charm.

6. Many would argue that this "charm" I speak of does not actually exist.

7. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 22 percent rating based on reviews from 18 critics. The audience rating, however, is 53 percent (which would still be considered a rotten tomato, unfortunately).

8. There are two types of reviews that Grease 2 ever really receives. The first is essentially summed up here (taken from an actual review on IMDB): "If you are an 11-year-old girl and you reviewed this film as "brilliant" or "fun" or "better than the original Grease," you have your fledgling adolescent hormones to blame and you can rest assured that this unyielding fixation with utter rubbish will pass. If, however, you are not a little girl (me), you have absolutely no excuse to suggest that Grease 2 was anything but an inane, artless, slipshod embarrassment for all who participated in its production, distribution, and/or consumption." Yikes.