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Before I quote Needham, I will provide my own perspective.
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.
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Now that I have provided by own basis, I will quote the following passages from Needham's article "Reaganite Cinema".
While Ronald Reagan's first term in office was not until 1981, there was already a cultural and poltical shift underway in the latter half of the 1970s that was indicative of how the New Right came to ower with a landslide victory.=====
The 1979 "Disco Sucks" riot in Chicago was a symbolic event that speaks of an idea that the long party and the fun of the 1970s were over. Baseball fans gathered to blow up disco records during a baseball match half-time that became a riot chanting "disco sucks" that quite explicitly targeted two groups seen to have been over-privileged in the preceeding decades, namelyh, women and gay ben since the slogan of "disco sucks" itself is hardly veiled in its attack to be read simply as "cocksuckers like disco".
Republicans characterized the 1960s and 1970s as wayward decades, unruly and hedonistic, insecure and paranoid, leading the US toards moral and economic decline, distrust in the government, and a weakened international image. ....
One should remember that Saturday Night Fever (1978) is actually an anti-disco movie that also de-gays and de-blacks the music phenomenon and instead ... inserts a hegemonic white masculinity ....
Reagan counseled a return to Father Knows Best (1954-1960) sitcom politics of the 1950s, the decade in which he was also a Hollywood film star and conservatism and containment culture were at their peak. ...
In this respect, it is no surprise that the 1950s operate as a halcyon decade in 1980s discourse, re-written before it all went wrong in the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s also became a popular setting for a number of 1980s films, including the appropriately titled Back to the Future (1985) alongside Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Diner (1982), Grease 2 (1982) Stand by Me (1986) and Streets of Fire (1984).
The return to the 1950s values is a return to family values, that is to say, a return to patriarchal values ... The 1980s is an era of "reassurance" and "reaction". ... recuperation of the military image .... retaliation against foreign powers ... rejection of the Equal Rights Amendment, repeal of Roe v. Wade. ...
Cinema did not immediately shift to the right all of a sudden in 1981 as Reagan took root in the White House. ... There were numerous films released around 1980, interestingly all commercial failures, such as Cruising (1980), All That Jazz (1979) and Thief (1980) that belong to the cinema of the 1970s. ... But the majority of films, especially like Superman (which saw three sequels in the 1980s) exerted a simplified narrative structure, were loaded with spectacle and acts of heroism, and provided a more comfortable and reassuring place for the film spectator. ...
[Film theorists] Robin Robin Wood and Andrew Britton both outline a series of dominant tendencies or characteristics that articulate Reaganite ideology on several levels, including form, genre, predictability, and experience. Chief among those ideological tendencies or goars are the above-mentioned restoration of patriarchy and recuperation of the military.
[Some movies had as a goal] the regression of the audience to a state of infantile wonder (ET: The Extra Terrestrial Short Circuit (1986)). ... In apparently constructing the adult spectator as a child, socially and psychically, there is no place to think when confronted by awe and wonder. During the exile rating mine cart sequence in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), one is caught up in the suspense and energy of a good old-fashioned chase ... so tht we forget, regress, or not even notice that the film is one of the most outrageously racist films of the decade: a nadir of neo-colonial fantasy in which the "savages" are an immoral bunch of Asians .... [with] many bizarre and heinous practices. ...
The key theme of the restoration of the patriarchy is often complemented by meting out punishment against women for their mostly sexual transgressions outside the family .... Kramer versus Kramer (1979) ... Terms of Endearment (1983) and Fatal Attraction (1987) ....
One could also draw links between Reagan’s increase on defense spending and the militaristic fantasy and macho heroics such as Firefox (1982), Blue Thunder (1983), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Iron Eagle (1986), and Top Gun (1986). ...
Needham discusses the 1983 dance movie Flashdance at length. In that context he mentions Dirty Dancing. I thought his attempt to relate Flashdance to Reaganite economics was flimsy and not worth summarizing here. You can read the entire article at that website.
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In general, I thought that Needham's categorization of "Reaganite Cinema" had much merit. The Reagan presidency indeed did express a successful reaction to political and cultural upheavals of the previous 1965-1980 period.
In the 1982 movie, An Officer and a Gentleman, an ordinary young woman becomes supremely happy by becoming the wife of a military officer. There sure was no movie like that during the pre-Reagan period of 1965-1980.
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In the context of "Reaganite Cinema", the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing embraces that 1965-1980 period. Life was good for Baby Houseman in 1963, but she foresaw future years of progress. She soon would obtain a higher education, work abroad in the Peace Corps for a few years, and then pursue a satisfying professional career. Abortion would be legalized, and women would be liberated in many additional ways. Baby would be able to enjoy a satisfying love life even before she married. Before she reached the age of 30, she would find a great guy, like her dad, to marry.
Baby foresaw that the years 1965-1980 would be, overall, years of improvement for herself as an individual woman and for American society and for the world.
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