* Screenwriter John Milius was inspired by the so-called Reagan Doctrine, which included US support to guerrillas who were defending their countries from take-over attempts by the Soviet Union. In particular, Milius was inspired by the Reagan Administration's support for guerrillas in Afghanistan who were fighting against the Soviet Union's occupation army. Therefore Milius decided to develop a movie -- Red Dawn -- that would depict ordinary young Americans fighting as guerrillas resisting a Soviet-Cuban Communist invasion of the USA.
* Screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein feared that President Reagan would appoint federal judges who would overturn the US Supreme Court's 1973 decision to legalize abortions. Therefore she decided to develop a movie -- Dirty Dancing -- that would depict problems that had been caused by legal prohibitions against abortions. She would set her story in the year 1963, one decade before the 1973 legalization.
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In an earlier article, titled Dirty Dancing in the Era of Reaganite Cinema, I discussed the Reagan Administration's influence on American movies. In particular I wrote:
During Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-1989), there was a re-assertion of American moral confidence and forceful action. The USA was right to struggle against the Soviet Union, which Reagan called "The Evil Empire". This was a political reaction against a previous period -- approximately 1965 to 1980 -- when much of American society had prominently expressed shame and self-criticism about various policies (e.g. racial discrimination, the Vietnam War, limitations on women).======
This Reaganite reassertion of confidence and action attitude was expressed by various movies that became popular, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Terminator, Ghost Busters, Rambo and An Officer and A Gentleman. Such movies glamorized brave American men fighting against powerful, alien, evil forces. Such movies have been categorized as "Reaganite Cinema" or as "Reaganite Entertainment".
So, there was a cultural discussion about whether that previous, self-critical period -- 1965-1980 -- had been mostly reasonable or mostly excessive. In general, political liberals considered it to be mostly reasonable, whereas political conservatives (i.e. Reaganites) considered it to be mostly excessive.
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The movie Dirty Dancing was released in 1987, near the end of the Reagan presidency. (If you count the presidency of George H. W. Bush as an extension of Reagan's presidency, then the movie was released in about the middle.) The movie explicitly addresses that self-critical period of 1965-1980. Baby Houseman indicates that big social changes would happen after the assassination of President John Kennedy (November 1963) and the arrival of the Beatles in the USA (February 1964). Max Kellerman remarks that family vacations at resort hotels were a disappearing tradition because young people preferred to travel abroad.
Baby Houseman was looking forward to the new period with a positive attitude. She was looking forward to new dancing styles. She was looking forward to joining the Peace Corps and living abroad.
From this perspective, Dirty Dancing expresses a favorable judgment about the period of 1965-1980, which Baby foresaw as a period of artistic creativity and international cooperation. In particular, Baby foresaw that women would be liberated from sexual and professional limitations.
The two main stars in Dirty Dancing -- Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze -- played roles in Red Dawn.
I know enough about Grey's politics to feel sure that she was personally disgusted by the movie's jingoistic, war-mongering story. However, she was in an early stage in her career when she felt compelled to accept an offer to act in this movie. Although her role was small, it was her biggest role so far in her career.
Swayze was farther along in his own movie career and so was not so compelled to participate in this movie. To some extent, he really liked the movie's anti-Soviet and even anti-government messages. He has praised the movie with these words:
We take our freedom for granted and we think [that] it can’t happen to us. Red Dawn sort of just stirred the worldwide pot a little bit. It got people thinking and got people scared.Swayze grew up in a Texas family of small-business entrepreneurs. I assume that he and his family supported Reagan politically.
Swayze's political attitudes are important in analyzing Dirty Dancing because he rewrote that movie's script significantly. Swayze considered his Johnny Castle to be an entrepreneur who lived on his own wits and effort and who benefited little from the government's educational and business-supporting programs.
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Here is the Red Dawn trailer.
In the above trailer, you will see Jennifer Grey a couple of times beginning at about 1:30. (Yes, Charlie Sheen too is in this movie.)
The movie is mostly about the young men who fight against the invasion. Patrick Swayze stars in the movie as a high-school guy, the school's football team quarterback, who leads this resistance. Although Swayze was in his early thirties (he was born in 1952), he does look plausibly like a high-school student.
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Although Grey was in her early twenties (she was born in 1960), she too looks plausibly like a high-school student. Red Dawn and her next movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) showed that she could play plausibly a teenager role.
Supposedly there was some antagonism between Swayze and Grey during the filming of Red Dawn. I doubt, however, that they interacted much. He was the movie's star, and she played only a minor role. He did not have the time or interest to pay significant attention to her during the filming.
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Although the movie is mostly about young men fighting a guerrilla war, two young women are featured as participating . Those two female characters are played by the actresses Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson. Of those two female characters, the main female character is the one played by Thompson.
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| The actresses Jennifer Grey and Leah Thompson playing female helpers the 1984 movie "Red Dawn" |
The Grey character does kill a lot of invaders, despite being physically too weak to effectively use firearms. She is effective, however, in planting bombs in buildings in order to kill lots of the invaders.
Towards the end of the movie, the Jennifer Grey character is shot by a Russian attack helicopter.
After she is shot, the Patrick Swayze character puts her onto the back of his horse and rides around for a while. Then he leaves her on the ground and gives her a hand grenade. Later, she uses that hand grenade to kill a Russian soldier who comes to molest her dying female body.
To recapitulate, Grey plays only a minor role in the movie. She is one of two female characters -- the minor of the two -- who help the major, male characters who use their strength, bravery and intelligence to fight against the invaders. These male characters use the Jennifer Grey character mostly as a sexual decoy in clever attacks against the invaders.
Red Dawn demonstrated that, despite being in her twenties, Grey could play a teenage role.
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Patrick Swayze is the movie's star. As the quarterback of the high school's football team -- the school's mascot is the wolverine -- he naturally becomes the leader of the high school's young men who comprise the guerrilla force that fights against the invaders. Swayze acts his role well. Many of his scenes include emotional moments that he acts well.
Red Dawn helped demonstrate that Swayze was an attractive and capable actor who could star in a feature movie. A couple years later he was selected to star in Dirty Dancing.
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The two movies' logos are similar.
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