ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that Grease and its ‘teenagers’ stand at a kind of liminal moment in the United States, fundamentally shaped by the crisis period of the early 1970s and influenced by the social movements and identity politics of the late-1960s onward and yet also anticipating. It examines the audience reception of Grease and its significance as an object of ‘hopelessly devoted’ fandoms. The book seeks to re-examine and reconsider Grease, which has for so many years been dismissed as a reactionary nostalgia film presaging the conservative recuperations of the imminent Reagan era. It considers how the film represents the transformations in norms of gender and sexuality after the sexual revolutions that occurred between the time of the film’s setting and the time of the film’s release, nearly twenty years later.
