• Tarquinn2049
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    10 hours ago

    To be fair, Grease is a parody, and that was part of what they were parodying at the time. So they went a little extra with it too.

    It’s a parody of the super common “beach fling” style of movies from the 60’s. They even reference some common actors and actresses from those movies.

    It’s why each scene seems so poorly tied together, and the characters aren’t very consistent.

      • @[email protected]
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        911 hours ago

        He was 24 when Grease was made.

        The guy next to him is Michael Tucci, who was 32 at the time.

        Luke Perry at the beginning of 90210 was the same age as Travolta. Then later on the same age is Tucci in the same series.

        • @[email protected]
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          17 hours ago

          It’s because we associate appearances of older generations as older, even when they pass as kids at the time

          You can find kids saying the same thing about 90s movies even when they look like high schoolers did

    • @[email protected]
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      109 hours ago

      That’s just Japan being Japan. Every JRPG ever ‘‘He’s a grissled war veteran that lost a civil war in his country and then fought in the war for our county, betrayed by his brother and framed as a traitor he’s long been forgotten by everyone rotting away in an isolated prison cell’’ Blood Type A, age 19.

  • Jo Miran
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    14 hours ago

    Sometime the reverse is true.

    Keira Knightley had just turned 18 when she filmed Love Actually (2003). She played a newlywed woman in her mid to late twenties. Her famous “floppy hat” was used because she had a giant teenager zit on her forehead.

    Sometimes the casting is dead on.

    Mariel Hemingway was 16 when she played the 17 year old love interest to Woody Allen’s 44 year old man in Manhattan.

    I think, in movies, a big driver in casting is trying to guide the audience. Had they cast actual teenagers in Grease, the audience would have been scandalized by the subject matter rather than focus on the comedy and music. That’s why they cast a teen to play a teen in Manhattan. The entire thing is meant to feel off and uncomfortable, which would not have been apparent had they cast a woman in her mid twenties. They cast a teen Keira Knightley because they needed the audience to instantly understand why the character had a crush on her. Whether we like to admit it or not, our monkey brains register teen women simultaneously as angelic/pure and “peak breeding material” (yes, it’s yuck when put that way).

    Movie magic is built on multiple layers of subconscious manipulation.

    • @[email protected]
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      1913 hours ago

      Even with the casting choices, I’m flabbergasted that Grease became a cult classic. As far as I can tell the overall message of the film is: “if a woman wants to keep her man, she must act like a dirty slut.”

      • Jo Miran
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        1411 hours ago

        Didn’t Travolta’s Greaser character turn clean-cut in order to be with her? I always thought the point was that they originally liked each other for who they were, without pretense but society was forcing them to conform to standards and pigeonhole them.

        Or maybe it was all about the dancing and singing and we are trying to get too deep into it.

        • @[email protected]
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          26 hours ago

          That’s only true of badly (or barely) written musicals like Cats.

          Great musicals like Les Miserables or Hedwig and the Angry Inch have plots as good as the songs or, in the latter case, even better!

    • @21Cabbage
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      211 hours ago

      Was gonna say, even if you weren’t downing at least a pack a day yourself there’s nobody around you who isn’t.

    • @[email protected]
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      512 hours ago

      One of my classmates started having a receding hairline when he was 15. He was always able to buy alcohol (the age is 19 in Ontario).

      • @[email protected]
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        27 hours ago

        Guy at a school I went to was full bald by 18. Just the ring left, top completely gone and smooth. But no facial hair. Looked like a 40 yr old engineer at NASA.