10 Movies That Chose The Wrong Lead Character

Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) is the outright lead of hit musical Grease, though in more recent years there's been a fair amount of pushback against her character arc, that what qualifies as her happy ending is changing herself entirely for the boy in her life, Danny Zuko (John Travolta).

Regardless, Sandy's just a bit of a one-note character all things considered, especially compared to the leader of The Pink Ladies, Rizzo (a brilliant Stockard Channing).

Rizzo is a rough-edged character whose arc is considerably more interesting, yet while Sandy's decision to drop her pretensions towards "properness" are rewarded at film's end, Rizzo's free-spirited nature is largely shamed throughout the story (namely by way of the pregnancy scare subplot).

But Rizzo is a self-actualised person from the get-go and doesn't need a boy to get her there. Sure, she's pretty harsh to Sandy, but it's bore from a frustration with her slavish devotion to propriety, and the film still does a solid job of revealing Rizzo's more sensitive, vulnerable side.

Rizzo isn't as easily defined as Sandy, but that's part of why she's a far more interesting character and ultimately worthier of being the role model young girls look up to.