Grease Live Analysis

Grease Live

I will be looking at the 2016 Fox production of Grease Live! particularly the song "Freddy, My Love" performed by Keke Palmer as Marty Maraschino. This version of Grease premiered February 3, 2016 on the cable television station FoxNetwork, was produced by Marc Platt Productions and Paramount Television and was watched live by almost 12.3 million viewers. I am interested in looking at the construction of ethnicity and gender surrounding Palmer as Marty, due to the fact Keke Palmer is African American, and Marty is traditionally played as a Caucasian girl, as well as narrative space and time vs film space and time, and stylized gestural vocabulary. Throughout the show, Marty is played as being overtly sexual and a main center point

Looking at moments 2:00 through 2:05 on the video clip of “Freddy, My Love” FOX posted on their YouTube channel, we now see Marty and her friends on a USO performance stage performing for marines. Marty is shown leading the group, she stands in front as the other girls stand behind her dancing, she then walks down the catwalk stage to the back of the group and pulls her arms and hands down the frame of her face, precise to the beat of the song. The way Palmer controls her body when she walks from downstage to upstage is where the display of empowered sexuality. She takes long, circumscribed steps, as well as keeping her gait in perfect tempo to the song. This walk could perfectly be described as a strut. Using a strut as a walk has a long held connotation of being purposefully sexy and evoking, and in regards to female performers, it has long been used as a tactic for women to show off, such as during burlesque shows, modeling shows, or in dance. Strutting is widely regarded as “peacocking” or “to make a vainglorious display; strut like a peacock.” (Dictionary.com) Palmer can easily be described as doing that here. She waltzes down the catwalk in front of a crowd of marines, in a long, glamorous, sparkling red dress to achieve Marty’s pseudo-mature sexuality that is used to entice and

Take, for example, moments 0:08 to 0:20 of the video clip of “Freddy, My Love” FOX posted on their YouTube channel. Here, you can see all of the important characters from the scene and their direct contrast to Marty; Rizzo played by Vanessa Hudgens identified as the girl in purple, Frenchie played by Carly Rae Jepsen identified as the girl in pink, Jan played by Kether Donohue identified as the girl with pigtails, and Sandy played by Julianne Hough identified as the girl in the white nightgown. In this scene characters costumes and minute actions define their character when they're in a space absence of dialogue. There is a distinct separation between the four secondary characters that allow them to fall into two categories: innocent and mature. Rizzo and Frenchie are both dressed in loud colors, and sport short-styled hair, Frenchie even takes it one step further by wearing a short satin nightgown, and a fur trimmed robe over top, while Rizzo has short-shorts and a t-shirt. There outfits are a reflection of their characters, both have flirty and sexualized personalities- in fact, Rizzo is the only female character to have sex within the group of immediate female characters during the show. Jan and Sandy, on the other hand, are both dressed in white, a color often associated with purity and