White-washing America

From the beginning of the picture, one thing that becomes very obvious very quickly is pretty much the entire cast is white.

Considering the movie is set in 1958 – four years after race segregation in schools was outlawed – you'd expect Rydell to have a relatively diverse range of students. You'd be wrong!

Even the characters of different ethnic backgrounds, like Cha-Cha DiGregorio and Frenchy – who are Italian and Puerto Rican, respectively - are completely indistinguishable from their purely-American counterparts, making their heritage completely meaningless.