Johnny, Dally, and hair:
There is an irony to Dally being the only one of the gang to not grease his hair, and yet being the only one who’s SO delinquent he’s a full-on hood.
Now compare that to Johnny who has hairthat he TRIES to grease back, but it’s “so long it falls in shaggy bangs across his forehead”.
When Johnny dies, Dally pushes his hair off his forehead and comments on how he never could keep it slicked back right, and then has his big freak out.
He’s not just talking about hair, he’s talking about how Johnny couldn’t harden himself to the world like most greasers. How he could never be anything other than gold, no matter how hard he tried to be hardened like Dally.
