Sandy Is Dead

Submission 18,895

About

“Sandy Is Dead” is a fan theory surrounding the 1978 American musical film Grease which posits that the female protagonist Sandy Olsson had been dead throughout the entire movie and the rest of the plot follows a coma-induced fantasy of a dying woman.

Origin

On April 25th, 2013, Reddit user atomicbolt submitted the theory in a thread titled "A theory on the ending of 'Grease'."^[1] In an image (shown below), atomicbolt posited that Sandy drowned before the events of the film took place, and the film is the comatose fantasy of a dying girl that culminates in her and boyfriend Danny Zuko flying in a car off to heaven. As of September 8th, 2016, the thread has 1503 points, 80% upvotes, and 132 comments.

Spread

The theory's spread remained relatively tame, appearing in roundups of strange and alternative fan theories on sites like MentalFloss^[3] and Entertainment Weekly,^[4] until September 7th, 2016, when actress Sarah Michelle Gellar explained the theory to her followers on Facebook. ^[2] As of September 8th, her post, shown below, has nearly 10,000 reactions and over 2,000 shares.

The theory then began receiving mainstream attention, as sites including DailyMail,^[5] Entertainment Tonight,^[6] NME,^[7] New York Daily News,^[8] and more. The theory was a trending topic on Facebook on September 8th.^[9]