We’ve long been critical of Hollywood’s lack of fresh, new ideas and its apparent fascination with rebooting past films or giving us a sequel decades later. Sadly, merely paying homage to the original material is insufficient. Instead, producers opt to incorporate “wokeness,” believing it will be more appealing to modern viewers, but in the process, they end up taking something beloved and turning it into garbage that the masses don’t want to see.
The latest example is Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, the prequel series to the 1978 hit film Grease. I’m not sure who wanted this — it’s bad enough to hear any of the original songs and get them stuck in your head — but once again, the effort seemed less about telling a compelling story, and more about making it an anachronistically diverse, LGBTQ story, flaunting same-sex romances and obsession with racial identity.
Woke reboots, sequels, and prequels don’t have a stellar track record, and it’s hard to understand how Hollywood hasn’t gotten the hint. It’s bad enough that Hollywood doesn’t have enough new ideas it constantly has to borrow from past works, but it’s particularly bad when woke writers take period pieces and shamelessly insert LGBTQ ideology into them or diversify the cast in a way that makes them grossly inaccurate to the point where they’re arguably rewriting history. For example, Disney’s live-action reboot of Lady and The Tramp portrayed interracial relationships and race relations in a way that was grossly unrealistic for the era it took place in. The characters Jim Dear and Darling were made an interracial couple even though interracial marriage was illegal at the time and place the movie was set.
After premiering on April 6, the cancellation of Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies was announced last week. Apparently, the show was so poorly received that it will also be permanently removed from the Paramount+ platform. Though this is being done reportedly as a cost-saving measure, the move essentially memory-holes the movie out of existence.
“I am sorry to say that this is true. @riseofthepinkladies has been cancelled,” show creator Annabel Oakes posted on Instagram. “In a particularly brutal move, it is also being removed from @paramountplus next week and unless it finds a new home you will no longer be able to watch it anywhere. The cast, my creative partners, and I are all devastated at the complete erasure of our show.”
Last year, Amazon Studios’ premiered A League of Their Own, a series based on the beloved 1992 film of the same name. Like the Grease prequel series, it put storytelling second to pushing racial politics and LGBTQ ideology. “The show takes a deeper look at race and sexuality, following the journey of a whole new ensemble of characters as they carve their own paths towards the field, both in the league and outside of it,” a press release from Amazon Studios explained last year. The show was canceled back in March.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member