"Going Steady" versus "Going Slumming"

This article is part of a series. The previous articles were:

Why Penny and Robbie Risked Pregnancy, Part 1

Why Penny and Robbie Risked Pregnancy, Part 2

The Movie's Violators of Going-Steady Rules

Robbie's View of Penny as His Potential Wife

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After Robbie Gould and Penny Johnson met in June 1963,while working on their summer jobs at the Kellerman's resort hotel, they went steady for a few weeks. They broke up at about the end of June. Afterwards Robbie came to think that he had not been going steady with Penny. Rather, he had been going slumming with her -- Penny was only a low-class woman. 

During the movie Dirty Dancing, there is a scene where Robbie is walking past the employees' cabins and he sees Baby Houseman Johnny Castle standing on a cabin porch. When Robbie notices that Baby is caressing Johnny's back, Robbie remarks:

Looks like I picked the wrong sister.

That's okay, Baby, I went slumming too.

 

Robbie meant that he and Baby shared a perverse willingness to go slumming. Robbie had gone slumming with Penny, and Robbie saw now that Baby was going slumming with Johnny. In contrast, Baby's sister Lisa did not share that perversity; Lisa never would go slumming.

* Robbie perceived that Penny was a low-class woman, and so he called his relationship with Penny as going slumming.

* Robbie perceived likewise that Johnny was a low-class man, and so Robbie called Baby's relationship with Johnny as her going slumming

Since Lisa, in contrast, never would go slumming with a low-class man, Lisa did not share such a predilection with Robbie or with Baby. Since Robbie did share such a predilection with Baby, Robbie and Baby were a better match in that regard than Robbie and Lisa.

In that regard, Robbie should have become involved with Baby instead of with Lisa. That is why Robbie remarked I picked the wrong sister.

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The website Dictionary.com defines the expression to go slumming as follows:

To visit places or consort with persons below one's place or dignity; mix with one's inferiors [For example:] So we went slumming over in Philadelphia.

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The New York songwriter Irving Berlin wrote a couple of songs that contrasted two concepts:

1) When a higher-class person visited places or consorted with people below his place or dignity, this activity was going slumming.

2) When a lower-class person visited places or consorted with people above his place or dignity, this activity was called putting on the ritz.

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The first concept was depicted by Berlin's 1937 song Slumming On Park Avenue. The song's idea was that the Great Depression had bankrupted so many rich people that even Manhattan's Park Avenue had become a slum. The song is sung by Ella Fitzgerald in the following video.

Let's go slumming.
Take me slumming.
Let's go slumming
On Park Avenue.

Let us hide behind
A pair of fancy glasses
And make faces when
A member of the classes passes.

Let's go smelling
Where they're dwelling --
Sniffing everything
The way they do.

Let us go to it.
They do it.
Why can't we
Do it too?

Let's go slumming,
Nose thumbing,
At Park Avenue.

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The second concept was depicted by Berlin's 1927 song Putting on the Ritz. At that time, the expression putting on the ritz was recognized as Colored slang. For fun, Colored people would dress up and walk around on Harlem's Lenox Avenue while spending minimal money and would call such escapades putting on the ritz. That is how people -- especially those who lived in New York City -- understood the song during that era.

Harlem's Lenox Avenue is now called
also Malcom X Boulevard

The following video shows the song being performed in a 1930 movie. First the song is sung by a Caucasian man, and then a large group of Colored People (Caucasian actors in black-face) come out onto the stage and dance Colored-style to the melody. (At that time, the polite expressions were Colored and Caucasian).

Those original lyrics describe a bevy of high browns from down the levee who are spending every dime on a wonderful time by going to Lenox Avenue, where Harlem sits during a jubilee where they only spend their last two bits. The Colored maids -- Lulu Bells -- did this on their Thursday nights off from work.

Have you seen the well-to-do
Up on Lenox Avenue,
On that famous thoroughfare,
With their noses in the air?

High hats and arrowed collars,
White spats and fifteen dollars --
Spending every dime
On a wonderful time.

If you're blue
And you don't know where to go to,
Why don't you go where Harlem sits --
Putting on the ritz.

Spangled gowns
Upon a bevy of high browns
From down the levee, all misfits
Putting on the ritz.

That's where each and every lulu-bell goes
Every Thursday evening
With her swell beaus,
Rubbing elbows.

Come with me,
And we'll attend their jubilee
And see them spend their last two bits
Puttin' on the ritz.

The song depicts poor Colored people dressing up and having fun on Thursday nights on Harlem's Lenox Avenue. Some people say that such a song is racist, but I do not understand that reasoning.

When the singer Taco made this song a hit again in 1982. Taco made his video with Black-face dancers, but he was compelled to re-make it with White bums.

Fortunately, you still can watch the Black-face video here.)

By 1982, however, the American population had lost the understanding that the expression putting on the ritz had been a distinctly Colored-slang expression, that the song had depicted a fun activity done by Harlem residents and that the song had been performed originally with Caucasian actors wearing black-face. Also, during the years between 1930 and 1982, the song's lyrics had been changed by removing all the references to Colored people. Because of the video's black-face characters, Taco's video was denounced as racist and he was compelled to withdraw it. Fortunately, however, the video has reappeared on YouTube.

A video should be made with African-Americans dressed up in fancy 1920s clothing and "doing the ritz" during an evening on Harlem's Lenox Avenue. Such a video would present the song in accordance with Irving Berlin's intention.

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We are not supposed to say Colored People now, even though that used to be the polite expression.

When I was growing up, we all were supposed to say Negroes, because saying Colored People was considered to be racist.

Later we all were supposed to say Blacks, because saying Negroes was racist.

Then we all were supposed to say African-Americans, because saying Blacks was racist.

Now we all are supposed to say People of Color, because saying African-American is becoming racist.

In about twenty years, saying People of Color will be denounced as racist, because only some other expression will be considered to be proper.

I've lived through enough of this racism-accusation-mongering that I can't take it seriously any more.

I have decided to use the expression that was considered to be polite at the time. When I discuss the Dirty Dancing story, which took place in 1963, I use the word Negroes, which was the polite then. Now when I am discussing the song "Putting on the Ritz", I am using the expression Colored people, which was the polite expression in the 1920s and 1930s.

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We modern Americans tend to think of going slumming in racial terms. However, the expression was used already in England in the mid-1880s. A synonym was slum tourism, which Wikipedia describes as follows:

Slum tourism is a type of tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas, originally focused on the slums of London and Manhattan in the 19th century ....

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the word slumming to 1884. In London, people visited slum neighborhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation.

By 1884 wealthier people in New York City began to visit the Bowery and the Five Points area of the Lower East Side, neighborhoods of poor immigrants, to see "how the other half lives".

Following are a couple of drawings from the 1800s illustrating the concept of going slumming or doing the slums or slum tourism.

An 1800s illustration titled "Doing the Slums"

An 1800s illustration titled "In Slumnibus"

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After Robbie and Penny broke up, he came to perceive that

* Robbie and Baby were going slumming in their relationships with Penny and Johnny.

* Penny and Johnny were putting on the Ritz in their relationships with Robbie and Baby.

Robbie came to perceive that Penny was significantly below his own social, intellectual, cultural and economic class. Compared to him, she was a person of the slums.

Therefore Robbie decided in hindsight that he and Penny had not really been going steady.

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The seven basic characteristics of going steady were as follows:

1. Visible token

2. Required Dates

3. Exclusivity

4. Oversight

5. Special Events

6. Sharing Money

7. Intimacy

I myself added an eighth characteristic:

8. Age Appropriateness

Robbie added a ninth characteristic:

9. Social-Class Appropriateness

Robbie's addition to the list is as valid as my own addition.

In my own opinion, the going-steady cannot apply to a couple where the partners are too far apart in ages. As an exaggerated example, I do not think that a 50-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl are really "going steady" even if their relationship satisfies all the seven basic characteristics. Such a couple simply does not fit into the common understanding of the expression.

Robbie came to think likewise that a high-class man like himself and a low-class woman like Penny were not really "going steady" even if their relationship satisfied all the preceding characteristics. Because of their class difference, the relationship between Robbie and Penny did not count as "going steady".

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Robbie's belief that his relationship with Penny did not count as a going-steady relationship explains a remark he made to Baby in a conversation about Penny.

Robbie Gould
Why should you tell me what's right?

Baby Houseman
You can't just leave her [Penny].

Robbie Gould
Why should you tell me what's right?

Baby Houseman
You can't just leave her.

Robbie Gould
I didn't blow a summer hauling bagels just to bail out some chick who probably slept with every guy here.

Baby Houseman
A little precision, please.

Robbie Gould
Some people count, and some people don't.

Read it [Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead]. I think you'll enjoy it. But return it. I have notes in there.

Baby Houseman
You make me sick. Stay away from me. Stay away from my sister, or I'll have you fired.

Of course, Ayn Rand never preached that "some people count and some people don't". Rather, Rand preached that each person should live his own life to maximize his own self-interest. In particular, Robbie and Penny each should live thus. Rand would have said that Penny too counts and Penny too should live her own life to maximize her own self-interest.

What Robbie meant in his conversation with Baby was that Penny did not count as being a partner in a valid going-steady relationship. Therefore Robbie thought that he indeed could just leave her. Robbie and Penny had not really been going steady, and so his just leaving her did not violate the going-steady rules.

Robbie had come to perceive that Penny was just "some chick who probably slept with every guy here", which was a low-class lifestyle for a woman.

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Added on August 23, 2017.

Lawrence Welk, who was 24 years old when Berlin wrote Putting on the Ritz, understood the song correctly in a 1960 performance. However, that 1960 video has been replaced by the below 1976 video, which does not include Black-face characters. 

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My next article in this series will be titled Robbie Gould's Denial of Paternity.