‘Dirty Dancing’ and the Limits of Nostalgia

The FlavorWire website has published an article titled Dirty Dancing and the Limits of Nostalgia, written by Jason Bailey.

Jason Bailey

Jason Bailey is a graduate of the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

His first book, Pulp Fiction:The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece, was published last fall by Voyageur Press. His writing has also appeared at The Atlantic, Slate, Salon, and The Village Voice, among others.

He lives in New York with his wife Rebekah, his daughter Lucy, and their two cats.

The article includes the following passages:

.... By most reasonable standards, Dirty Dancing is a terrible movie: a dopey, cliché-ridden, anachronistic, woefully predictable across-the-tracks romance.  ...

One of the oddest elements of Dirty Dancing is the weird way it scrubs all traces of ethnicity out of the story; the Jewish faith of the Housemans and most of the guests at Kellerman’s is never mentioned in any way, nor is the goyishness of Baby’s eventual beau Johnny. By my count, the film features a) Kellerman himself using the word “schlep”; b) Baby’s dad (Jerry Orbach) sneering, “I don’t want you to have anything to do with those people again”; and c) Johnny informing Baby, “I know these people. They’re rich and they’re mean.” That’s it! ...

Of course, this forbidden love cannot be — especially after Johnny becomes the prime suspect in a series of wallet thefts (actual subplot!), and his alibi is an overnight rendezvous with Baby. She owns up to get him out of trouble, and after a teary lakeside confrontation with dear ol’ dad (its staging oddly reminiscent of Michael and Fredo’s last scene in Godfather II), she discovers Johnny is getting fired anyway ...

Her character arc had previously been dramatized by the transition from boxy virgin cardigans to crop tops; now she’s gone from Peace Corps-bound idealist to tough, cynical broad. After one more encounter with dad in which he won’t just come out and say he didn’t knock up Penny, Johnny hits the road, certain to never, ever return ...

And then Johnny (shocker of shockers) returns, marches up to the Houseman table, and utters the immortal corner line. (Question: Is it possible Baby chose that seat herself? Or perhaps it was an assigned seating situation? Point is, Johnny’s sure quick to jump to conclusions about her parents’ nefarious intentions w/r/t table settings.) ...

But can we talk about the music? The song our heroes perform to is eventual Oscar winner “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”; earlier, they rehearse to “Hungry Eyes.” Both songs, with their drum machines, synth tracks, and utter soullessness, could not sound more like 1987 if they included lyrics about Baby Jessica and Black Monday. ... But hey, you can’t blame them for farming out the music for the climax; it’s not like there were any good songs from that period to choose from. ...

People liked the music and liked the ending, and that Patrick Swayze, he sure can dance! And because it was one of the first real mega-hits of the VHS era (the first title to move over a million tapes, in fact), it was viewed again and again, its clichés turning into comfort food.

This is a phenomenon that’s not uncommon when it comes to movie lovers of a certain age and a number of inexplicably idolized titles of the period. In I Lost it at the Video Store, Tom Roston’s forthcoming oral history of the video store era as told by the filmmakers it impacted, Joe Swanberg pretty much sums it up: “Unfortunately, what happens to my generation is, we don’t just watch Breakfast Club two times while it’s in movie theaters. We watch Breakfast Club 69 times between the age of 12 and 25, and we convince ourselves The Breakfast Club is a genius movie. You have this wrapped up nostalgia and regurgitation and over-consumption of mediocre shit.”

Dirty Dancing has its virtues — the chemistry of the leads, the sensuality of their two-scenes, the vintage tracks — and it’s penetrated popular culture to such a degree that it’s an enjoyable enough watch, even for a cynic like me. But it’s a movie best seen through the hazy amber filter of ‘80s nostalgia, and if you’re watching it without those rose-colored glasses on, God help you.

You should read the entire article there.