By Jamie Bechta, Noah Brodsky, Hailey Corkery, Anika Grevstad, Thomas Striegl, Zoey Zhou (Block 2 2017)

“In the poster, Danny is positioned standing up, combing his hair and confidently staring at the camera with minimal facial expression. Sandy is shown lying on the car, placing her arm around Danny’s leg, looking at the camera with a big smile on her face. In “The Naked Truth: Advertising’s Image of Women,” Jean Kilbourne points out that the body language of women in advertising often implies passiveness, vulnerability, and submission. The specific codes that are used to construct femininity in advertising are further explained in Sut Jhally’s The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture when he notes that women are often portrayed lying down, a position that makes women defenseless to potential threats and more dependent on surrounding environments. He articulates that this position conveys the qualities of submission and vulnerability, which are often associated with femininity. The Grease poster adopts this trope, depicting Sandy as completely dependent on Danny.”

“The changes we made to the Grease poster challenge the gender norms that are depicted in the original. We wanted to keep both Sandy and Danny and keep the car that they are standing on in the poster but adjust how gender roles are portrayed. To do this, we experimented with different levels for Sandy and Danny in our photo shoot. In every image that we took Sandy is shown not caring for Danny whereas Danny is shown focused on Sandy. We did this through gaze and physical stance. Sandy is often depicted looking off screen away from Danny or looking directly at the camera.”