to Riz, our favorite greasy girl

Over here at Bellacozy/Holdfast, we are ladies, and we do a lot of ladies' things.  We've seen and reenacted a number of popular musicals many, many times.  We don't like all musicals, and there are some pretty awful ones out there - Andrew Lloyd Webber, etc.  But a catchy tune sung in the right setting really makes our theater panties drop, so to speak, and one of our favorites is Grease.  It has the square-to-hip story of Sandy, the tribulations of dropout Frenchie, and a heaping spoonful of cheesy boy trouble all wrapped in a poodle skirt.  I can't chose which song is my favorite, but my preferred character, without a doubt, is Rizzo, whose real name is Betty, whose real name is Stockard Channing, because it's only a movie and that's who plays her.

Frenchie is likable, too, but nobody fancies Sandy until she turns dirty, and who even remembers the other girls in the crew - we'll call them the one with all the boyfriends overseas and the one who does the "Brusha Brusha Brusha" dance.

What can I say? Rizzo is a hot and foxy bad ass with a hidden fragile heart.  She wears tight high-waisted skirts and rocks a short hairdo before it was kosher to do so.  Of all of the thirty-year-olds in that high school, she at least passes for a smoke-addled teenager, ridden hard and put up wet.

Stockard makes a special appearance as one of the chrome roller chorus members in the Beauty School Dropout number, which I once choreographed and preformed at a family reunion with my five male cousins - guess who got to be Frankie Avalon?

As someone with the same affliction, I'm glad that women can still be pretty even when the corners of their mouths face down when they smile.

Rizzo also has some of the best songs in the show, including the memorable Sandra Dee impersonation number.  Everybody knows juxtaposition is extremely effective, especially when it involves a, let's say, tramp, pretending to be a prude, and vice verse, which is also why it is so impressive when Sandy ditches her two-piece and pony tail for leather pants and ratted hair.