10 Extremely Uncomfortable Moments In Classic Movies

1. Grease - Danny Tries To Rape Sandy

I bet many of you reading will know every word to every song of Grease, the 1978 movie about high school kids (that happen to look a lot older than they should) and their lives.

But what is Grease’s core message? Because on closer inspection it seems primarily to be “change every single ideal you hold dear to snare a man who has tried to rape you in a car”. Now, a character changing most of their personality or appearance to further a film’s narrative is not new, and nor is it unique to Grease, but doing it after an attempted rape has occurred? Now that’s a slightly different story.

To recap the offending scene, when everyone goes to a drive-in movie, John Travolta’s Danny feels up Oliver Newton-John’s Sandy, then tries to force himself on her. At this point in the story, Sandy is still very much prim and proper, and she says “no” – he doesn’t listen. She says “get off me” – he carries on. Then he pins her down on the seat and says “don't worry about it, nobody's watching”.

So she fights back and hits Danny where it hurts with the car door. And what happens next? Poor Danny sings a song moaning about how he didn’t get his end away as hotdogs jump into buns in the background in case you missed the subliminal messaging of his song.

Let’s also not forget that Grease has issues with the concept of consent right from the get go. In Summer Nights, the boys light-heartedly sing “did she put up a fight?”

Date rape for the LOLs. Classy.