13 Movies That Contradict Their Own Message
2. Grease
The Intended Message: Opposites attract.
The Real Message: Change everything about yourself to make love work.
On a surface level, Grease seems to be a charming, typical story about opposites attracting: bookish square Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) falls for extrovert greaser Danny (John Travolta), and over the course of the movie they resolve their differing attitudes to life.
Except this is completely upended by the movie's ending, where Sandy shows up in a sexy black outfit, has converted her hair into a wacky perm and now smokes for good measure.
She has changed herself entirely for the whims of Danny, and it's celebrated like some wonderful triumphant moment of self-discovery despite being aggressively sexist. Opposites attract...as long as you're willing to change everything about yourself for the man in your life. Right.