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.
Dirty Dancing is one of those iconic 80's movies that taught everyone how to truly have the time of their life. If they have seen it, that is. For anyone who is still sitting in their own iconic corner, here is what you can expect the first time you see Dirty Dancing. From my eyes to yours.
1. Anticipation
I have heard so much about this movie and I really want to know how dirty this dancing is and whose baby everyone is talking about.
2. Surprise
Baby is apparently the main character. This comes as a shock, but now I am almost 100% sure I am going to change my name to Baby as well.
3. Amazement / Jealousy
Who can possibly bend like this? Also, can I own every single one of Baby’s outfits and find a hot guy every time I awkwardly carry a fruit?
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[The article continues with the following stages.]
4. Irritation 5. Confusion 6. Planning 7. Disappointment 8. Ear Love 9. Shock 10. Depression 11. Extreme Joy and Satisfaction
The Houseman family is in its last three days at Kellerman's Mountain Home. On Thursday night Baby Houseman went to Johnny Castle's cabin and became sexual with him for the first time. On Friday afternoon she returned to his cabin for more sexual fun. On Saturday morning Baby and Houseman meet in a dance-practice room and dance playfully to the song "Love Is Strange".
Neil Kellerman comes into the dance-practice room. Neil and Johnny argue about the dance that will be performed at the talent show on Sunday evening -- the last evening of the Housemans' stay at Kellerman's.
After the argument, Johnny and Baby are walking outside. During this conversation, Baby realizes that a marriage between herself and Johnny could not succeed. He lacks self-confidence, and he will become a house-painter.
Johnny Castle
That little wimp. He wouldn't know a new idea if it hit him in the pachenga. I could have told him some new ideas.
Baby Houseman
Why did you let him talk to you that way?
Johnny Castle
What, fight the boss man?
Baby Houseman
You tell him your ideas. He's a person like everyone else.
Johnny Castle
Look, I know these people. They are rich and they're mean. They won't listen to me.
Baby Houseman
Why not fight harder? Make them listen.
Johnny Castle
Because I need this goddamned job lined up for next summer. My Dad calls me today. "Good news," he says. "Uncle Paul can finally get you in the union."
Baby Houseman
What union?
Johnny Castle
The House Painters and Plasterers. Local #179 at your service.
Johnny and Baby overhear Lisa talking with her father and Robbie Gould.
Lisa Houseman
I've been thinking a lot about the Domino Theory. Now, when Vietnam falls, is China next?
After Lisa, her father and Robbie walk away, Baby and Johnny continue their conversation.
Baby Houseman
I don't think they saw us.
Johnny Castle
Fight harder, huh? I don't see you fighting so hard, telling Daddy I'm your guy.
Baby Houseman
I will. With my father, it's complicated. I will tell him.
Johnny Castle
I don't believe you, Baby. I don't think that you ever had any intention of telling him, ever.
Baby has decided that she never will tell her father that she and Johnny are a couple, because she realizes that her relationship with Johnny will not continue past Sunday. She cannot marry such a man who cannot fit into her own family's social class.
Baby's sister Lisa will marry a man like Robbie, who will become a doctor and who will discuss intellectual issues with the Houseman family. Baby cannot marry a house-painter who is afraid to speak his mind and who is interested only in dancing.
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On Saturday night Baby goes to Johnny's cabin again for more sexual fun. He tells her that he dreams about marrying into the Houseman family.
Johnny Castle
You want to hear something crazy?
Last night, I dreamt we were walking along, and we met your father. He said, "Come on," and he put his arm around me. Just like he did with Robbie.
Baby does not support Johnny's fantasy, because she knows already that their relationship will end after the talent show on Sunday evening.
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On Sunday morning, Baby goes to her father, to make peace with him. Her relationship with Johnny will end on that day, but her relationship with her father will continue forever.
She herself already has decided to terminate her relationship with Johnny because of his low social class -- because he will become only a house-painter -- but she projects her own social discrimination unfairly onto her father.
You told me everyone was alike and deserved a fair break. But you meant everyone who is like you. You told me you wanted me to change the world, to make it better, but you meant by becoming a lawyer or an economist and marrying someone from Harvard.
For sure, Baby's father never said that only people like himself deserve a fair break. For sure, he never said that she had to marry someone from Harvard.
Baby herself has decided that Johnny does not "deserve a fair break" because he will become a house-painter and that she has to marry someone with a higher education and a professional career. Those decisions are her own -- not her father's.
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The relationship between Baby and Johnny does not continue even until the talent show on Sunday evening. Rather, the relationship ends already on Sunday afternoon, because Johnny is fired from his job at Kellerman's. Baby accepts Johnny's early departure with controlled emotion, because she has known already for a day that sometime on Sunday they will part forever.
In the coming months, Baby will fully accept her own decision to terminate her relationship with Johnny. She will stop blaming her father. She will go on with her life and will find a guy as great as her dad.
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In 1963, union membership in the USA was high but had begun a long decline.
Percent of the work force belonging to labor unions after 1880
Percent of work force belonging to labor unions after 1950
If Johnny had joined a labor union in 1963, his union would have remained rather strong until about 1975. Then, however, his union's strength would have begun to decline rapidly. The workers in his labor union would have had to compete more and more with non-union house-painting companies.
A growing portion of the US population came to believe that labor unions were bad for the economy. The following graph of Gallup opinion polls (click on the image to enlarge it) shows that in 1963 about 21% of the US population disapproved of labor unions.
Growing disapproval of labor unions after 1963
In the following 50 years, disapproval of labor unions doubled from about 21% to about 42%. During those 50 years, approval of labor unions declined from about 68% to about 52%. Most of the people who still approve of labor unions are government workers, not private-sector workers.
In the last years of Johnny's career as a house-painter, he would become increasingly angry that his company would be losing business to non-union competitors -- many of whom would be low-skill immigrants and illegal aliens.
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One reason why labor unions weakened in the USA was competition from imported automobiles. As late as 1996, only about 11% of new automobiles in the USA were imported. In 1963, the portion of imported automobiles was far lower than 11%.
Rise in percent of imported automobiles -- 1995-2009
When Robbie Gould decided -- with Lisa Houseman's enthusiastic approval -- to buy an imported Alfa Romero automobile instead of a US-manufactured automobile, he was contributing to the eventual devastation of the US automobile industry and its strong, successful, influential labor unions.
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Johnny Castle was a future loser in the US economy. He would become a house-painter mostly because of that occupation's labor-union advantages. In the following decades, however, his labor union and his own job security would weaken in the growing competition with non-union house-painting companies.
If Johnny and Baby had married, his career as a labor-union house-painter would have disappointed Baby more and more, as she watched her sister Lisa prosper as a doctor's wife.
Most of Dirty Dancing takes place on the grounds of Kellerman's Mountain Home. Some travel away from that setting does happen or is mentioned in the movie, however.
* The Houseman family drives to Kellerman's.
* Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle travel to the countryside for the "Hey, Baby" scene.
* Baby and Johnny travel to and from the Sheldrake Hotel.
* Penny Johnson and Billy Kostecki travel to New Paltz for the abortion.
* Johnny drives away from Kellerman's after he has been fired.
Baby's only actual travel during her "heroic journey" are her trips to the countryside and to the Sheldrake.
Beyond her actual travel, however, she travels symbolically in several scenes.
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There are a couple of scenes where Baby crosses a bridge over a river or where she climbs stairs uphill. When Baby helps Billy carry the watermelons to the "dirty dancing" party, she crosses such a bridge and climbs such a stair. These two movements symbolize travel.
Baby about to cross a bridge and climb a stair.
In the "Wipeout" scene, Baby again crosses this bridge and climbs this stair -- symbolizing travel.
In the "Hey, Baby" scene, Baby crosses a log-bridge over a river.
The "Hey, Baby" scene ends with Baby practicing the dance's lift movement in a lake. The lift itself symbolizes air travel.
The lift-in-the-lake scene symbolizes also the initiating rite of baptism -- the rite of purification by means of water. The Hero's Journey genre essentially depicts an initiation into adulthood -- an initiation that is symbolized by such a rite.
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In a previous article titled Space-Time Portals in the Movie Dirty Dancing, I pointed out that Baby's entrance into the "dirty dancing" party is framed as a passage through a space-time portal.
Baby passing through a space-time portal
The bunkhouse doors are a frame -- a portal -- within the larger frame of the movie screen.
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I do not think that the movie's screenwriter, director or cinematographer intended to present all or any of those scenes with such symbolic meanings. However, many people in the movie audience perceive such symbols subconsciously.
For example, the "Wipeout" scene's bridge-crossing and the stair-climbing probably did not symbolize travel in the minds of the people who made the movie, but those movements nevertheless do symbolize travel subconsciously in the minds of many people who watch the movie.
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In this series of articles about the Hero's Journey genre, I do not argue that Eleanor Bergstein developed her story following the model of this genre. It's possible that she did so, but I don't argue so.
Nevertheless, many people watching the movie perceive this model subconsciously, because this model is common in many stories.
In any case, analyzing the movie with regard to the Hero's Journey genre is a thought-provoking exercise in literary analysis.
The Wikipedia article about the Hero's Journey explains that a typical story of that genre comprises three main parts -- Departure, Initiation and Return. Each such part typically comprises various subparts. For the Departure and Initiation parts, Wikipedia lists the subparts as follows.
Departure
The Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Supernatural Aid
Crossing the First Threshold
Belly of the Whale
Initiation
The Road of Trials
The Meeting with the God
The Man As Tempter
Atonement with the Father
Apotheosis
The Ultimate Boon
In this series of articles, I have finished the Ultimate Boon subpart. There I argued that Baby Houseman achieves her Ultimate Boon in the final scene, where her dance performance demonstrates that she should no longer be perceived as being a "Baby" -- rather, she should be recognized henceforth as being an adult, capable, confident woman. Also, immediately after her dance performance, she reconciles with her father.
Baby has accomplished her initiation into adulthood and has become a hero with improved qualities:
Wisdom
Life Experience
Familial Support
Recognition
Adult Authority
Confidence
Performance Ability
Emotional Self-Control
Generosity
Baby will be able to apply those improved qualities to her future efforts in her life.
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The Wikipedia article about the Hero's Journey listed the three parts as Departure, Initiation and Return. The article list's the Return subparts as follows.
Return
Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto his fellow man.
The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.
Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience.
The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world.
Master of Two Worlds
This step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Gautama Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.
Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.
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The 1987 movie Dirty Dancing does not depict any of those "Return" subparts, but the movie's beginning does provide a few clues about what Baby's return to her Ordinary World. The movie begins with Baby narrating from the year 1987 (the year when the movie was released), when she says:
That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me "Baby", and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came -- when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman's.
This narrative indicates that the following events happened between the end of the vacation at Kellerman's in September 1963 and the movie's release in August 1987.
* She no longer was called "Baby" by most people.
* She began to mind still being called "Baby".
* The Kennedy assassination and the Beatles' arrival affected her life.
* She continued to at least think about joining the Peace Corps.
* She did find a guy as great as her Dad.
Other clues about the future are provided by the song Big Girls Don't Cry, which accompanies Baby's narrative. The lyrics reveal how the relationship between Baby and Johnny Castle eventually ended.
The lyrics tell Johnny's perspective in 1987, looking backwards in time toward 1963. Johnny had told Baby that he was terminating their relationship while hoping secretly that she would beg to continue it. Baby, however, had accepted the relationship's termination stoically, with her mother's emotional support.
I told my girl we had to break up;
Thought that she would call my bluff,
But she said, to my surprise:
"Big girls don't cry."
Baby, I was cruel.
Baby, I'm a fool.
"Shame on you," your Mama said.
"Shame on you, you cried in bed.
"Shame on you, you told a lie."
Big girls DO cry
"Big girls don't cry."
That's just an alibi.
The opening scene is like a duet performed in 1987 -- telling the movie audience what would happen after the movie's story. Baby's narrative indicates that afterwards she no longer would be called "Baby" and so forth. Meanwhile, Johnny's song tells how the romantic relationship between himself and Baby would end.
So, the 1987 movie does reveal some facts about Baby's return to her Ordinary World, which will happen after the movie's story ends on September 2, 1963.
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In the ABC original movie, released in 2017, Frances (previously called Baby) is shown having a husband and daughter ten years later, in 1973.
Baby with her husband and daughter in 1973
Many people reject this 2017 TV movie as a genuine sequel. However, I offer two arguments for accepting this depiction of Frances's personal situation in 1973.
* Eleanor Bergstein never presented her own sequel and has not objected to this sequel.
* The 1987 movie's opening narrative indicates that Frances eventually (before 1987) will find a guy as great as her Dad.
I myself accept (unless Bergstein ever presents her own sequel) that in 1973 Frances will be a happy wife and mother.
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The available clues about Baby's Return to the Ordinary World enable me to elaborate a few of the subparts as follows:
Return
Refusal of the Return
The "Big Girls Don't Cry" lyrics indicate that Baby would be very sorry -- would cry -- about the termination of her relationship with Johnny. Baby would spend a tearful time fantasizing that she might continue her relationship with him after all.
Rescue from Without
The song's lyrics indicate also that Baby's mother will provide the emotional support necessary to accept the termination of the relationship with Johnny. Baby's mother will shame Baby into accepting the relationship's termination. Baby's mother will tell Frances to stop acting like a Baby.
The Crossing of the Return Threshold
Baby's opening narrative indicates that Frances's life will go through a significant transition that coincides with the period from November 1963 (when President Kennedy was assassinated) to January 1964 (when the Beatles arrived in the USA). After that intermediary period, Frances will cross a threshold into a new stage in her life.
Master of Two Worlds
In 1987 Baby will tell this story because she still is proud of her idealism that governed her actions during that summer vacation at Kellerman's Mountain Home in 1963, when she was 17 years old. Now in 1987, she is 41 years old, and she maintains much of that youthful idealism but she has learned also to deal with the practical considerations of being a wife and mother for many years.
Therefore, the movie Dirty Dancing comprises all three parts of the Hero's Journey genre:
The 1987 movie Dirty Dancing takes place in 1963 and depicts a doctor's two teenage daughters initiating sexual activities with men whom they know to be sexually promiscuous. These doctor's daughters are risking venereal disease and pregnancy even though the men had not proposed marriage.
In 1963, middle-class young women generally evaded and refused sexual activities with men who had not proposed. Of course, some such women did become sexual without proposals, but people watching Dirty Dancing should recognize that Lisa's and Baby's sexual initiatives with Robbie and Johnny would have been unusual in 1963.
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Popular movies of the early 1960s featured heroines who cleverly and successfully evaded male seduction. The female audiences admired such heroines, whose examples provided encouragement and ideas.
For example, in the popular "beach movies" starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, the Funicello character frustrates the Frankie character through the entire series -- Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party(1964), Bikini Beach (1964), Pajama Party (1964) and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965).
This battle of the sexes begins at the very beginning of Beach Party. Frankie has rented a beach cabin for several days, intending to have sex there with Annette. When they arrive at the cabin, however, Frankie finds that Annette has invited a large number of friends to stay with them in the cabin for the entire time. Annette has done so in order to evade Frankie's intention.
... William Asher commented in The New York Times, "The key to these pictures is lots of flesh but no sex. It's all good clean fun. No hearts are broken and virginity prevails."
The films may have been innocent and the kids chaste but they were also very sexy with all the curvaceous bikini-clad girls and shirtless surfer boys frolicking in the sand.
According to Donna McCrohan, author of Prime Time, Our Time, these films were also reassuring to parents because with girls like Annette and Chris Noel as the defenders of virtue they showed that "it's possible to spend the whole summer on the sand in practically no clothes, fall in love with another terrific-looking nearly naked person and still not 'go all the way'."
It was this wholesomeness, real or imagined, that attracted the kids and their approving parents. It is the same wholesomeness and naivete that make these movies popular to this day. Their innocence has a nostalgic aspect to them as sort of "pop mythology" as noted by Andrew J. Edelstein in The Pop Sixties.
[Page 13]
The cover of "Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies"
by Thomas Lisanti
Lisanti writes further that sexual attitudes and behaviors began to be depicted differently in such movies in the second half of the 1960s.
The Civil Rights movement was marching on. The counter-culture was in full swing with hippies and flower children. College students were turning on, tuning in and dropping out. They fought the establishment in every way -- from protesting the US presence in Vietnam to taking LSD to practicing free love.
During the Age of Aquarius, teenagers weren't buying the beach films, because there was nothing meaningful in them. Their plots about clean-cut all-American lily-white teenagers whose only problems seemed to be trying to get their virginal girlfriends to put out or worrying when the next big wave would roll in seemed outdated amid the problems in the world.
The innocence of the early sixties was being replaced by the cynicism of the late sixties. American International Pictures [the main producer of such films] sensed this change first and began catering to this new, hipper audience with biker films and "alienated youth" movies.
[Pages 25-26]
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The female movie audience's admiration for heroines who resisted male seduction extended beyond teenage characters. For example, Doris Day played career women in their twenties resisting seduction in a series of very popular movies -- Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and That Touch of Mink (1962).
Another example of a movie featuring a career woman in her twenties is he 1963 movie Sunday in New York. This movie was adapted from a successful Broadway play of the same name. The play ran for 188 performances -- from November 1961 into May 1962 (Robert Redford played a leading role).
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The movie's heroine is 22-year-old Eileen Tylor (played by Jane Fonda), who is 22 years old and works on a newspaper staff in Albany, New York. Eileen has been living with her parents, who are quite religious. For a few years she has been dating a successful, wealthy man, Russ Wilson, in Albany.
As the movie's story begins, Eileen has just been dumped by Russ because she has refused to become sexual with him while he has not proposed to her. (The movie does not clarify whether she intends to remain a virgin until marriage.)
In order to recover emotionally from being dumped, Eileen travels to Manhattan to stay a while in the apartment of her brother Adam Tyler, who is an airline pilot. During her first day there, a Sunday, she meets a man, Mike Mitchell, on a city bus, and they spend the day sightseeing together.
At dusk Eileen and Mike get drenched in a rainstorm, and so they go back to the apartment of her brother, who is supposed to be flying an airplane out of town. Eileen and Mike get out of their wet clothes and put on robes. Eileen becomes drunk and decides to have sex with Mike. When he finds out that she is a virgin, however, he refuses to have sex with her. He advises her to stick to her moral principles.
I will not reveal the movie's ending, but the entire movie revolves around Eileen's inner conflict about losing her virginity before marriage -- or at least before an engagement.
I will say that young women watching the movie to its end would not feel that the movie undermines a principled determination to remain virginal until marriage. This intention of Eileen is portrayed as admirable.
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An important factor in the quick, mutual attraction between Eileen and Mike is that they share an appreciation of jazz music. In particular, they both love Peter Nero's jazz piano. In the second half of the movie, Eileen's Albany boyfriend Russ comes to visit Eileen in Manhattan, and they go together to hear Nero play in a nightclub. You can see toward the end of the following video clip that Eileen wishes she were sharing this jazz-music experience with Mike rather than with Russ -- whose major interest is not jazz, but rather boxing.
(The same scene is played twice in the above video clip.)
The movie Sunday in New York depicts the conduct, fashions, and attitudes of middle-class, professionally employed young adults in New York City in 1963.
Such people generally liked jazz and folk music much more than rhythm-and-blues.
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In 1963, most young people conformed with society's guidelines. Young couples got married and soon gave birth to children. Then the women would stay home to raise the children, while the men would earn enough money to pay all the expenses. People who conformed expected to prosper economically.
A key element of this social conformity was that middle-class young women avoided sexual intercourse until after they at least became engaged to marry. In 1963, that was the social norm that was depicted in the popular movies that were made during that period.
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The movie Sunday in New York is worthwhile to watch.
* The TCM television channel broadcasts it several times every year.
* On the Amazon webpage, 70% of reviewers give it five stars (the best), and 22% give it four stars.
* On the Rotten Tomatoes webpage, 100% of the professional reviewers rate it positively, and 79% of casual viewers rate it positively.
Thrillist senior editor Andy Kryza is a longtime writer and graduate of Michigan State's School of Journalism. In pursuit of stories, he's embarrassed his mother by being Tasered, teargassed, and shot with various projectiles, resulting in weird scars and broken limbs. He's subsisted on pizza cleanses, dog treats, and baby food, traveled the globe drinking whatever was offered, and has seen every movie in the Step Up and Chipmunks series. He currently resides in Portland, OR. Approach with caution, or keep your distance by following him
Kryza argues that Johnny Castle is a serial sexual predator. The article includes the following passages.
.... When you look closer, there seems to be something more sinister at play, and it all centers on the suave and seductive charms of Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle. Once you start chiseling at the character’s veneer, you might start to suspect something much darker: Dirty Dancing may or may not be the story of a serial sexual predator operating with impunity summer after summer, preying on young girls’ lusts. ...
When 17-year-old Baby ... arrives at the Kellerman’s Resort of rich New Yorkers, she immediately becomes infatuated with Johnny Castle, crushing on him hard. And she’s proactive. She actively wedges herself into his world. ...
Before we know it, the age-unknown Johnny and teenage Baby are official residents of Pound Town, with Baby sneaking in and out of his trashy cabin to do the horizontal tango.
So, yeah, it appears Baby is the one who makes the moves. She’s ALL over him. She’s like the wind. But when you look at the whole thing from Johnny’s perspective, it becomes increasingly obvious that Johnny’s got this whole thing planned. Because he’s done it before. This isn’t Johnny’s first dance.
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When we first meet Johnny, he walks into Kellerman’s as his manager is giving a slightly creepy pep talk to his summer employees.
“Show the goddamned daughters a good time. All the daughters. Even the dogs. Romance ‘em any way you want,” he says.
When Johnny walks in, however, the conversation turns. He addresses Johnny directly. Just Johnny: “Teach ‘em the mambo, the cha cha... that’s it. That’s where it ends. No funny business, no conversations, and keep your hands off.” ...
Johnny seems to get the message, despite obviously carrying on with humping the older women at the resort at will. He takes to the dance floor and dances with the ladies, hyper-aware of everything going on, including the fact that Baby’s drooling over him.
When Baby later shows up to the after-hours party in the staff cabin, Johnny immediately beelines to her, asking what she’s doing there and walking away coldly. These days, we call that negging. And it works. She’s transfixed. His trap is set. He’s already displayed publicly that he is not interested in this young flower.
And then, wham! On the dance floor, Johnny comes lunging at Baby, pelvis first, undulating at her as if somebody’s grabbed him by the dong and started tugging him toward her against his will. Within 20 seconds, they’re grinding crotches together. Hard. .... He then walks away, leaving her loins to froth.
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After that, it’s a standard high school-style game of Johnny being negative, then being a saint. During their training montages, he berates and then slyly lays on the suave. It’s not said, but there’s a damned good reason they go from dancing fully clothed to dancing in states of undress. It’s because the teacher, Johnny, demands it.
It all culminates in Baby’s so-called seduction of Johnny. She asks him to dance. She kisses him gently on the neck, then WHAM! That pelvis goes undulating and Johnny goes from first base to a walk-off grand slam in a matter of seconds.
It works like a charm. And my suspicion is that it has for many summers.
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Maybe Johnny’s just a product of his time. Sure, he thrives on a steady diet of MILF, but he’s also a man raised in the ‘50s, when rock idols constantly sang of hooking up with 16-year-olds and Jerry Lee Lewis made a big show of marrying his teenage cousin. He saw the raw power of rock and roll and its ability to unleash long-dormant sexual impulses in the masses ... and he harnessed it into that sweet, sweet Swayze pelvis. ....
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After his mighty leap from the stage following the big dance routine, he hits the ground, turns to the crowd, and hump-dances in their general direction. The fellow staffers, hypnotized, immediately spring into a highly choreographed dance, as if Michael Jackson threw the dance magic of Moonwalker at them. The old folks all get up and begin bumping and grinding. ....
But the real kicker? Baby’s dad approaches Johnny and apologizes to him. He stares at him, dazed, and says he’s sorry for thinking that Johnny was the one who knocked Penny up. He makes no mention of the fact that this dude has been banging his daughter on the reg for days, despite Baby telling him. That, friends, is the power of the pelvic sorcery. He has hypnotized every single guest at the resort. Baby never stood a chance. ...
But there are even more mind games at play. When Baby asks how many people he’s slept with, he goes into wounded boy-hooker mode, taking a page out of the David Lee Roth book of Just a Gigolo. ...
He totally gives himself away at the end, when he announces to the crowd that he always does the last dance of the season .... He doesn’t strike me as a man who makes up a tradition after one summer. He’s worked here for a while. And given that the staff feels compelled to give him stern warnings not to hump the guests’ daughters, there’s substantial evidence to at least suspect he’s done this before. ...
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Johnny might not have knocked Penny up, but it’s his cousin who immediately knows where to get that illegal abortion, and Johnny looks on approvingly. Dude’s probably got a punch card with the good doc. ...
He’s struck before. And while he probably won’t strike at Kellerman’s again -- he was, after all, fired for having sex with a teenage customer -- it’s likely that he’ll strike again… unless he remains a fixture in Baby’s life, crushing her Peace Corps dreams by dragging her down with him as he joins the house painters union. But hey, at least they won’t be in danger of having too many kids. Johnny knows a guy.
So yeah, maybe Baby should have stayed in the corner. It wouldn’t have made much of a difference to Johnny Castle. Dude’s having the time of his life. Every summer.
You can read Kryza's entire article there. The comments following the article are worthwhile to read.
At the beginning of the "Hungry Eyes" scene, Baby Houseman is dancing in two-piece outfit, the top half of which looks like a bra. The material is pink, with small, white polka-dots. Watch the first 45 seconds of the following video clip.
The outfit's bottom part is made of the same material and is high-waisted. The following screenshot provides the maximum view of that bottom part.
One of the persistent mysteries in my many-years analysis of the movie has been that outfit's bottom part. I assumed mostly that it was capri pants, but my soul remained troubled by doubts. We all will die with some questions unanswered and perhaps unanswerable forever.
Tonight, however, this particular prayer of mine has been answered. While I was searching the Internet for new insights into the movie, I came across the following photograph.
Now I don't understand how I ever thought the bottom part was capri pants. On that speculation, I went down a very wrong road for a very long time.
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Now, however, I must address another question about that outfit's bottom.
Shorts that never were worn by any American girl in 1963
In the early 1960s, girls' shorts extended farther down the thighs, as shown in the following image.
The 1964 movie Bikini Beach shows a lot of girls' shorts in the segment from 34:30 to 41:30. You will see that the girls' shorts worn there provide much evidence for my thesis.
However, at the bottom of that article, a know-it-all reader wrote the following comment.
Really?
Nope.
Wrong.
All you've got to do is google short shorts...start with 1950s. They were a fashion item then so it is not too far flung to think that teenage girls weren't rolling up the legs on their short creating short shorts in the 1960s era in this movie.
Before going to Google, I searched YouTube and immediately found the following video from the year 1958.
Anyway, I am far from being an authoritative analyst of the movie's clothing fashions. That field of study remains uncharted territory. The most that I can do now is to point the way for future generations of cinema students.
That "ending" saw Johnny and Baby reunite 10 years after their initial meeting at Kellerman's. It's 1975, and Johnny Castle has brought Dirty Dancing to life as a Broadway musical in New York City. Frances (because who thinks she goes by "Baby" anymore?) decides it's worth taking a trip down memory lane; for the next three hours, she watches her teenage self carry a watermelon ...
It turns out Frances is now married with an adorable young daughter. She's writing books and taking salsa classes once a week at the local Jewish Community Center. Johnny is, apparently, still Johnny (though with seventies-style hair) and credits Baby with inspiring him. At the end of the musical, the two share a hug and Johnny meets Frances' daughter. He urges his former teen love to "keep dancing," which seems like the equivalent of what someone signs in your high-school yearbook.
But how did that extra scene come to be? That's where Dirty Dancing writer Jessica Sharzer comes in. Taking on the task of a lifetime, Sharzer had to keep the story and tone the same as the movie version, while adding scenes and developing existing characters. So what was the real deal behind Johnny and Baby's big reunion? And did she have to get permission from the original screenwriter? Here, she explains all.
Jessica Sharzer, screenwriter of ABC remake
(This photo is not from the Glamour article.)
The interview of Sharzer begins as follows.
Glamour
What was the reason behind that decision to fast-forward 10 years at the end and catch up with Baby and Johnny?
Jessica Sharzer
It’s the seventies. There were two considerations that led to that. One is that people have such nostalgia for this movie, and one question was always, "I wonder what happened to Johnny and Baby?" So we felt for fun, if we’re going to redo it, why not answer that question?
The other thought was that by putting a frame around it, where she’s actually going to see the Broadway musical of her life — and Dirty Dancing was turned into a Broadway musical — that it actually gave permission for the musical numbers. So the framing device sort of served both of those ideas.
Glamour
What do you hope the audience takes away from that moment? Do you hope they're shocked?Satisfied?
Jessica Sharzer
You never forget your first love, and I’m very interested in first loves. In fact, the very first job I got in Hollywood was to write a screenplay called First Love. ...
It’s not usually the love that you sustain for the rest of your life, and there’s something very immature about it. It’s a very dramatic experience, and so, for me, it was interesting to see, Where did their lives land them later. It was less about what happened between them because it was never really [a thought] that we were going to throw them together as husband and wife. It was more about, How did that summer change them permanently in terms of their direction in life?
I don’t think it’s going to particularly shock audiences, but I hope it’s satisfying to just answer that question and to see that this first love — for her — was sort of awkward and geeky, [and] that it led her somewhere in her life. Glamour:
Did you have to get permission from the original writers to make that decision?
Jessica Sharzer
I didn’t have to do that. We really had permission to take the ball and run with it.
Glamour
This version is about an hour longer than the original film. What additions did you look forward to incorporating? Jessica Sharzer
We decided to add a lot for the parents because they cast these amazing actors [Bruce Greenwood and Debra Messing] and wanted to give them something to do beyond what was in the original, especially the mother.
And we also wanted to expand the sister’s role because in the original movie she’s more comic relief, which is great, but for us, we wanted to really dive into the sister relationship and dive into her psychology. You know, how she’s different from Baby and how the two of them come to learn about each other and mutually respect each other by the end.
So we really dove into those family stories. It was just a lot of fun. It was a really fun job.
In the Glamour interview, Sherzer answered also the following questions.
Glamour
From a feminist angle, was there anything you pushed for to make this version even more empowering than the original?
Glamour
Was there ever any talk about splitting them [Baby's parents] up for good, or was that not an option?
Glamour
Vivian Pressman’s role was expanded in this version. How did that come about?
Glamour
Was there any chance of having anyone from the original movie make a cameo in this version?
To read the Sharzer's answers to those latter questions, go to the Glamour webpage.
