Tight Is The Word

If you're old enough to remember the movie Grease, you know what I'm talking about.

Back in 1976 tight was synonymous with Grease.

Nature or nurture, that's the big question explaining who we [think we] are. Whatever. For as long as he can remember, Dutch has a thing for women in leather pants, cat suits and latex ensembles. It takes time to understand where you're coming from. In my case I cannot help but wondering if Grease is the answer.

In 1976, the movie Grease was the best performer at the box office, starring a young John Travolta opposite Olivia Newton John. If you're about 15 years older than Dutch [circa man on the moon], High School Musical is the word. Same story, different cat. The big if, separating two movies that define two consecutive generations, are Sandy's pants.

Danny, a high school senior, is tangled up in a double life. The teenager is both the leader of a greaser-gang and when his friends are not there, a hopeless romantic. Macho boy Danny is deeply in love with introvert Sandra Dee. The young lovers spend the summer together, but when it's time to go back to school, he's too cool [stupid/immature] to express his love for her openly. Like all feel-good movies Grease has a happy ending. Olivia Newton Johns' character Sandy is shown the light and finally understands that true love requires sacrifice. She takes up smoking (hey, it's still 1976) and decides to wear skin-tight pants to 'seduce' the man who loves her. Makes no sense, does it?

Even back then,
smoking wasn't cool.

Fun fact, Olivia Newton John's pants were so tight, she was sown into them every morning. Afraid she had to go to the bathroom, she stayed away from fluids most of the day.

Some people say that circa 1989 the majority of [Caucasian] men had developed some kind of crush on Julia Roberts in the movie Pretty Women. For those of us in our twenties and thirties, Mrs. Roberts wasn't our first on-screen crush. To this day I wonder what part of me enjoys women wearing leather pants [1] because I saw it in Grease at an impressionable age and what part has always been there. It's nature vs. nurture all over again. Impossible to answer and also: who cares. It's just a fun question, just don't take it too seriously. At least until you can afford to spend 400.000 to buy the original pants at auction. Clearly my [middle of the road] preferences are not the problem.

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[1] Bonus fun fact, it's not leather pants but lycra pants. Who cares?

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