This blog discusses the movie Dirty Dancing, which was released in 1987 and starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The articles discuss:
* literary aspects, such as characterization, motivation, interactions;
* the music and dances;
* the production of the movie;
* critical reactions.
During the log scene, the soundtrack plays the song "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons.
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The script (not the dialogue) remarks that "she's having the time of her life". Has this song already been selected for the movie -- or is this phrase a mere coincidence?
While hopping, Baby and Johnny begin to fall in love.
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During the lake scene, the soundtrack plays a "new song" -- a "love ballad".
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Baby will ask Neil to provide an alibi to her parents.
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Penny's remarks that she does not sleep around were added to this dialogue later, at the request of the actress Cynthia Rhodes.
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This dialogue in which Baby threatens Lisa was filmed but was deleted from the final movie, but is included in a montage of deleted scenes.
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Johnny and Baby perform at the Sheldrake Hotel and then at a second -- the Whitley Hotel. Baby performs her first performance correctly, including the lift.
During the drive from the first hotel to the second, they take turns changing their costumes in the car's back seat.
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At the second hotel, Baby sees the Schumachers. Apparently this sight unnerves Baby, and so she performs the dance faultily. She breaks her shoe heel and then barely does the lift.
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On the drive back to Cosner's (Kellerman's), Baby puts her hand on Johnny knee, but he pushes it off. For the rest of the drive, they do not speak to each other.
In Penny's cabin, a pile of bloody sheets lies in a corner.
Rico again has a speaking role. He apparently accompanied Billy and Penny to the abortion.
Oliver Gruner, author of the scholarly article "The Politics of Dirty Dancing", perceives that Jake Houseman is "the symbolic authority figure for ... middle-class American society".
Baby’s personal journey is predicated on her breaking away from the intense grip that her father, Dr. Jake Houseman, holds on her political beliefs and personal life. Dr. Houseman is the symbolic authority figure for both the Houseman family and middle-class American society more generally. When Baby begins to question his values she also is challenging what is represented in this film as broader social and political norms governing the behavior of women in the early 1960s. ... Dr. Houseman, as is the case with many of the middle-class characters at Kellerman’s, also holds rather conservative views towards women and the working classes.
Throughout the film, Baby becomes increasingly aware of her father and his friends’ unwillingness to put abstract egalitarian ideas into practice.
Other characters likewise are politically symbolic.
* Max Kellerman loses his "moral authority" when he sets different rules for the "well-to-do wait staff" and for the "working-class Johnny" about their dealings with female guests. This differentiation is an example of "the regressive politics lurking behind the ... liberal veneer".
* Robbie Gould is a "sneering, snobbish and thoroughly immoral college boy" who has a "selfish attitude". He is a "heartless individualist".
* Neil Kellerman is "a negative representation of the New Left man — he is to go on a civil rights Freedom Ride after all — whose political convictions are bound up with rather archaic views on masculinity." He symbolizes "the hypocrisy existing not just amongst older liberals but amongst a new generation of politically active young men who still equated invigorated citizenship with masculinity; viewing it as a triumph over effeminacy."
* Lisa Houseman "cannot countenance love as anything more than a pathway to marriage and social status".
* Marjorie Houseman is "the typical housewife: domesticated, loyal to her husband, and devoted to her children."
In contrast to those characters, Baby Houseman develops her own political attitudes in a genuinely progressive direction.
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The movie's music has political significance.
... In the early 1960s, pop music became the one area of popular culture in which adolescent female voices could be clearly heard. Articulating female desires and anxieties in a far more direct manner than was common at the time, [girl-group songs] .... helped teenage girls to come to terms with their own hopes, desires, and sexuality." Such music offered "Baby an escape from the confines placed upon her by the family, and, more generally, by middle-class mores."
Political folk singers (e.g. Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan) "were at this time challenging overtly the political establishment through the lyrics of their songs. Their music was, however, missing the visceral kick and sexual aggression of Johnny’s soul music. Baby is already in possession of the outward-looking liberal politics of these folk singers; the soul music facilitates her turn inward."
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After the movie was released, its political aspects were not appreciated adequately.
Baby no longer simply parrots her father’s political rhetoric but instead reveals its limitations and stands up to his hypocrisy Her sabbatical from middle-class society and by extension the oppressive expectations placed upon “good” middle-class female behavior, allow her to develop her own political and ethical code.
She is ... a changed woman who is similarly capable of changing other people’s political and social outlooks. Taking Baby’s lead, the final dance sees previously staid and stolid men and women come together in a collective expression of social and sexual freedom. ...
Dirty Dancing did provide enough political and cultural touchstones to at least indicate an attempt to inspire serious dialogue and debate on several issues of importance. Contemporaneous reception indicates, however, that this attempt was largely unsuccessful.
Gruner explains that by 1987, when the movie was released, feminist concerns largely were taken for granted. Feminist concerns were no longer remarkably controversial.
.... feminism and women’s memories of the Sixties had, to some extent, been evacuated of political significance. For example, Susan Douglas argues that the 1980s saw numerous attempts on the part of the advertising industry to court the “liberated woman.” Ads for cosmetics, clothes, and exercise equipment tipped their hats to the feminist movement while the same time erasing its political agency. “Women’s liberation metamorphosed into female narcissism," argues Douglas. Individuality and self-empowerment were reduced to improving one’s appearance and having a good time. ....
One might link such sentiments to Dirty Dancing’s famous promotional tagline: “Have the of your life” — an apolitical appeal to individual desires. ....
The emphasis [in the marketing of the movie] on romance and the absence of any historical context suggests the film to be less about real issues and important events than about personal wish-fulfillment, or having “the time of your life.”
And, a few dissenting voices notwithstanding, critical reception followed suit, ignoring Dirty Dancing’s politicized narrative of the recent American past.
Gruner provides many examples of reviews that ignored the movie's political aspects. (In general, Gruner provides good evidence for his various arguments.)
Dirty Dancing failed to enter [political] debate to any significant degree. Even the controversial abortion subplot was dismissed as a distraction. When reviewers referenced this subplot, it was usually in a very brief sentence. .... Generally, no one was willing to discuss the abortion, and rarely mentioned any of the film’s other political issues.
The movie's political aspects did not begin to receive their due appreciation until the late 1990s -- a decade after the movie was released. This appreciation has continued to grow to the present.
A generation after Dirty Dancing’s theatrical release, the film has enjoyed its own political awakening.
Again, I say that Gruner provides good evidence for his evaluations.
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Gruner concludes his article:
.... a widespread unwillingness to treat Baby’s transformation as anything but wish fulfillment and fodder for personal/sexual desires meant that Dirty Dancing’s political representation initially received little coverage in the public sphere. This reading was influenced by broader discourses in which feminism frequently found itself either being attacked outright as a negative social phenomenon or re-configured ... as “empowered consumption.”
The suggestion that Dirty Dancing embodied mindless and disposable entertainment is all the more ironic given that this film, in terms of its cultural profile, has gone from strength to strength. Its success on VHS and DVD and the constant Dirty Dancing revival screenings at cinemas indicate that it has had at least as long a lasting impact as films like Platoon, JFK, and Forrest Gump.
That political commentators too did not incorporate Dirty Dancing into their debates to the same extent as they did the other three [movies] may say as much about what they considered “important historical subject matter as it did about the films’ textual content. Male-centered narratives and pictures dealing with prominent public figures tend to be ascribed a gravitas that films dealing with private relationships, no matter how political, fail to achieve.
Nevertheless, the film’s enduring popularity and its recent critical re-evaluation indicate a new-found feeling that, to paraphrase Baby, there is a lot more to Dirty Dancing than was initially thought.
I liked Gruner's article a lot.
I did not find the article on the Internet. As far as I know, the article is available to read only in the book.
The National Enquirer tabloid magazine -- its March 11, 2019 issue -- features a cover story titled "Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze: Truth About Their Love Affair".
Magazine's Cover
The story covers two pages.
Article's Left Page
Article's Right Page
I summarize the article as follows.
Insiders say that the chemistry between Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey "blazed into a lovefest off the set."
A longtime friend dishes that when they were dancing, they "felt this undeniable sexual energy". This friend adds:
Many people assumed then -- and still believe today -- that the two stars were having a red-hot love affair while making the movie!
Early during the filming of Dirty Dancing Grey felt there was "little spark" between Swayze and herself. She said, "I didn't think we had chemistry." However, soon "the magic happened".
He smelled really good, his skin was really nice. He was really strong and he was very protective,, and his heart was very much in it. ...
He was a great dancer, and he was fearless. ... He'd do anything, and I'd be scared to do anything."
Swayze was 34 years old, and Grey was 26 years old.
An insider reveals:
It became clear that Patrick and Jennifer were falling hard for one another, just as their characters were. The relationship was electric. It was difficult for them to keep their hands off each other, although they flirted constantly -- on- and off-screen!
Producers had to keep a sharp eye on them before their love got out of hand!
Still, there were moments when the two became a intimate as true lovers could be!
When they performed the lake scene together, the water was very cold. Grey feared that her nipples might explode.
The source adds:
They seemed so in love by the end of shooting, many people thought Patrick and Jennifer might have run away with each other.
They did not run away together, though, because Swayze was married, and Grey had a boyfriend.
During the filming, there also "were a few moments of friction" between Swayze and Grey, especially when they were tired. Sometimes she cried when she was criticized. Sometimes she "slipped into silly moods".
Kenny Ortega, the movie's choreographer, believes:
The two stars' love for each other shows up on film. ....
There was something there between them that was unexplainable.
They were human fireworks! ...
It was magical.
That is the article's most important information about the love affair between Grey and Swayze.
