My Sociological Criticism of "Dirty Dancing"

Yesterday I posted here an excerpt from a documentary film that is titled Making Sense of the Sixties. Below, again, is that excerpt.

The excerpt ends at August 28, 1963, when the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place. This was the event where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. The event took place while the Houseman family was vacationing at Kellerman's Mountain House.

Since I watched that excerpt yesterday, I have thought about it in relation to a sociological criticism of Dirty Dancing.

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An article titled The Sociological Approach to Literary Criticism explains:

A person who examines a text closely, looking for deeper meaning and insights, is called a literary critic. There are several different approaches a literary critic can take when closely examining a text.

One approach is called the sociological approach. According to X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia’s Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, when using the sociological approach, a critic “examines literature in the cultural, economic, and political context in which it is written or received.” What does this mean? Let’s break it down.

The critic might look at the society – or context – in which the text was written or s/he might look at the society in which the text is read or seen or heard. The critic might be asking, “What can the society that the author lived in tell me about his/her work?” or the critic might instead be asking, “What does this text mean to our society?”

What aspects of society might the critic examine? S/he might look at the culture of the society, including standards of behavior, etiquette, the relations between opposing groups (e.g., parents and children, the rich and the poor, men and women, religious beliefs, taboos, and moral values.) The critic might also look at the economy and politics of the society, including its system of government, the rights of individuals, how wealth is distributed, and who holds the power.

To discover what a text can tell us about the society in which it was written, ask:

 Who has the power in this society and who doesn’t? Why?

 What are the official and unofficial rules (conventions, mores) of this society? What happens when a rule is broken?

 How are women supposed to behave in this society? How are men supposed to behave? How do men and women relate?

 What is valued in this society? (love, money, power, order, honesty, etc.)

 How does money affect individual’s lives in this society?

 How do opposing groups (e.g., parents and children, the rich and the poor, men and women) relate in this society?

 What type of government does this society have? How is the ruler chosen? What rights do individuals have?

 How is wealth distributed in this society?

To discover what a text can tell us about our society, ask:

 What aspects of this society would most readers find unacceptable? What ideas have changed?

 What aspects of this society would be admirable to most readers? What has changed?

 Why does our society value this text? What “speaks to us?”

 How do we view the characters, plot, and themes differently than an audience in another time and place?

To discover whether the author is affirming or criticizing his/her own society, ask:

 Does the author seem to think the way his society works is acceptable or problematic?

 What values, virtues, character traits, and actions does the author either a.) not question or b.) seem to hold up for admiration?

 What values, virtues, character traits, and actions does the author seem to hold up for criticism?

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The excerpt from the documentary Making Sense of the Sixties contrasts two social groups during the years 1960-1963.

* Caucasian college students were largely complacent and conformist.

* Negro college students were largely dissatisfied and rebellious.

The Caucasian college students were disturbed and affected by the Negro college students' example. This impetus set in motion the remarkable social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s.

(In 1963, the polite words were Caucasian and Negro. I  don't need any racism accusations about my using those words here.)

The movie Dirty Dancing does not revolve around racial relationships. The only arguable racial aspect is that Baby Houseman comes to appreciate Negro music and dancing, but that is a minor aspect.

In Dirty Dancing, there is a disturbance of complacency and conformity that is caused by a non-racial interaction.

The established, professional and prosperous
Houseman family
interacts with some struggling artists.

There is an ethnic aspect in this interaction, because the Housemans are Jewish and the artists are Gentiles, and that is part of the reason why the family patriarch Jake Houseman is concerned about his daughter Baby's romantic relationship with Johnny Castle. That aspect, however, is only a minor aspect.

The Houseman family conformed to the social conventions that worked well during the 1950s and early 1960s. The men attended universities and the developed professional careers. The women married and managed households that raised children to follow those conventions. Such families prospered.

Other characters in the movie followed the same conventions, although sometimes less than perfectly. Neil Kellerman attended a School of Hotel Management and was trying to find a suitable marriage partner. Robbie Gould attended Yale Medical School and dumped a girlfriend who turned out to be not suitable as a marriage partner.

The movie's major characters who failed to follow the social conventions were Johnny Castle and Penny Johnson, who were struggling to make their livings as professional dancers. Neither of them had obtained a higher education as their basis for developing their careers. Neither of them -- while already in their mid-twenties -- were orienting themselves toward marriage and children.

Johnny and Penny are artists who are struggling professionally and personally. Their economic futures seem bleak. Johnny might have to go back to painting and plastering houses. Penny suffered a close call with an unmarried pregnancy. Johnny and Penny feel intellectually inadequate and lack social self-confidence

The entanglements of Baby and Jake, on one hand, and Penny and Johnny, on the other hand, affect Baby and Jake profoundly. Baby and Jake come to appreciate and even respect Penny and Johnny.

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The Negro college students' impact on Caucasian college students was the most important social impact in propelling the upheavals of the 1960s. However, there were other social impacts too.

For example, many young people who did not go to college but did go into music careers become successful and prosperous. Those young people's uneducated and unmarried but successful artistic lives pointed to ways outside of the social conventions.

A popular book in that period was On the Road, by struggling writer Jack Kerouac. Published in 1957, the book tells how Kerouac, after divorcing his wife, traveled aimlessly throughout the USA as he wrote this book to start a writing career. The book turned out to be a best-seller and Kerouac was making a good living as a writer by 1963.

Because of various social and economic developments, the early 1960s became a period when social outsiders began to enjoy new success and to earn respect and wealth when they asserted themselves. The most important such social outsiders were the Negroes.

Another group of social outsiders was the struggling artists -- musicians, dancers, writers and so forth. They made their livings by their wits and initiative -- not by earning college credentials. Artists always have struggled in society, but they enjoyed growing opportunities to succeed by the US economy of the early 1960s. Opportunities were developing in the businesses of movies, television, publishing, music, concerts, architecture, decoration and so forth. The artists' role and importance in American society was changing and growing.

The movie Dirty Dancing tells just a small story of the interaction between the Houseman family and the resort's professional dancers -- but the story is illustrative, insightful and sublime. The conventional family and the struggling artists come to understand and affect each other to their mutual benefit.

The story takes place in 1963, on the eve of a remarkable social upheaval that would last for many years.

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One motto of that upheaval was Turn on, tune in, drop out -- which is what many children of conventional families did.

I do not imagine that Baby Houseman "dropped out", but this later extreme manifestation illustrates the incipient rebellion against the social convention that is part of the setting of Dirty Dancing.   

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Below is a lecture by William Smith about his sociological criticism of Jane Austin's novel Pride and Prejudice.