| “ | Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be socs. Sometimes I think it's the ones in the middle who are really the stiffs.
— S. E. Hinton
|
” |
Greasers were a culture of street gangs in the 1950s and 1960s, known for their proficiency with blades, brutal melee and hand-to-hand combat, leather jackets, stylized hair, and love of fast cars, wild lifestyles, and rock and roll music.
Greaser gangs began in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and flourished throughout the 1950s and 1960s, before dying out in the early 1970s. They were centered in the East Coast and the Midwestern United States and were mostly comprised of poor and working-class youths from Irish, Italian, and Hispanic backgrounds.
While Greasers have been associated with TV characters such as Danny Zuko and The Fonz, these characters are sanitized 50's caricatures who have nothing in common with the actual Greasers of the '50s and '60s, save for the jackets and jeans.