Grease 2 is actually way cooler than the original

Yesterday, comedian Michael Showalter posted a seemingly innocuous comment on Twitter:
Perhaps to his own surprise, Showalter was almost immediately besieged by testimonials agreeing that, not only does Grease 2 hold up, it even surpasses the original. So here’s the think-piece he requested.
First, there’s the simple fact that many of us grew up with the 1982 sequel on a cable loop, often running more than the illustrious Grease. As a result, some of us know “Cool Rider” better than “Summer Nights.” But there’s another aspect that explains the sequel’s intense fandom: In the 1978 movie, idol-on-the-rise John Travolta plays the greaser Danny, while Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John is the strait-laced Sandy. Theirs is a love story about trying to change identities to fit in with who they think the other wants them to be. And while Danny halfheartedly tries being a jock, in the end it’s Sandy who undergoes the biggest makeover, ditching her cardigans for skin-tight leather pants and totally morphing into Danny’s ideal, leaving her real self far behind.
Grease 2 offered a gender swap: Stephanie, played by then-unknown Michelle Pfeiffer, is a female greaser Pink Lady, while Maxwell Caulfield (Rex Manning himself) plays Sandy’s nerdy yet hunky Australian cousin, Michael. Stephanie offers a much better female role model than the mousy, cheerleading Sandy, as June Diane Raphael pointed out to Showalter: