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Sunday, March 31, 2019

The July 1986 Script -- 15

Continued from -- The beginning of this series

Click on an image to enlarge it.

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Page 95

Page 96
The conversation between Baby and her mother was filmed but was not included in the final movie.

The parting of Baby and Johnny is much shorter in this script than in the final movie.

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Page 97

Lisa's talent-show performance still is not defined in this script.

Robbie is wearing a chorus-girl costume when Jake gives him money for medical school.

Robbie remarks that he intends to use at least some of the money to buy a stereo for his Alfa Romero car. Perhaps Robbie already has bought the car.

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Page 98

Robbie admits to Jake that he might have made Penny pregnant.

Jake takes back the money and says to Robbie: Go suck your radio.

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Page 99
In this script, Moe sings a cowboy song. In the final movie he is wearing a pirate hat.

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Page 100

Manny (Max) intends to close the hotel.

An earlier script included an orthodontist, whom this script includes only momentarily in the talent show. The orthodontist was not included in the final movie.

The hotel's anthem is sung by:
* the dentist (orthodontist)

* Moe

* a drag chorus of waiters

* two couples who won a First Family [Kennedy] Look-Alike contest
In the final movie, the waiters are not wearing drag costumes, and there is only one woman who looks like Jackie Kennedy.


Left to right in the above photo: 1) a waiter not wearing a drag costume, 2) a woman who looks like Jackie Kennedy, 3) Neil, 4) the entertainment director, 5) Moe.



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Continued at

Miscellaneous Videos - 93






"Dirty Dancing" Is White Enough -- Part 4

Continued from Part 1Part 2 and Part 3.

See also:
Couples Dancing in Movies in the Late 1950s -- 1

Couples Dancing in Movies in the Late 1950s -- 2

Couples Dancing in Movies in the Early 1960s

Choreography of Bob Fosse

Choreography of Katherine Dunham

Choreography of Alvin Ailey
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In this article I use the words Negro and Caucasian, because they were the polite words in the early 1960s.

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Richard Dyer's article "White Enough" about the movie Dirty Dancing includes the following key statement:
... historically, where the [movie's] dance comes from -- albeit mixed with other sources, albeit filtered and exaggerated by white perceptions -- is African-American musical culture.
I am offering a different perspective on the importance of Negro culture in the movie's dancing. I am arguing that Negro culture was only a minor contributor to the movie's dancing.

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During the later 1950s and early 1960s, Negroes contributed disproportionately to American music, and that disproportion is reflected by the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing. However, Negroes did not contribute disproportionately to American dance in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

During the early 1960s, the Motown music company, a leader in the popularization of Negro music, was headquartered in the building pictured below.

The Motown headquarters in the early 1960s
Meanwhile, the MGM movie company, a leader in the production of movies featuring dance performances -- practically all done by Caucasians -- was headquartered in the complex pictured below.

The MGM movie company in the early 1960s
America's Negroes were able to make and sell music records, but they were not able to make feature movies or even television shows. They music was heard widely, but their dancing was not seen.

In 1963, young American Caucasians had grown up watching Caucasians dancing superbly -- creatively, intelligently, attractively, excitingly, entertainingly -- on movies and television. Negroes were not influencing Caucasian dance significantly -- except that one Negro dance, the twist, overwhelmed popular dancing.

Because Negro music was becoming disproportionately popular, Caucasians were adapting their own dancing to Negro music. That is different, however, from adopting Negro dancing, which they never or only rarely saw.

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In the movie Dirty Dancing, Baby Houseman walks into the staff quarters and sees a crowd of hotel employees "dirty dancing". In reality, however, that would not have happened in 1963. At such a party, at least 90% of the employees would have been dancing the twist.

At most, only a few would be dancing in a manner similar to "dirty dancing". These few indeed did practice dancing in their basements and so had become better, more innovative, more sexy dancers. In reality, Baby would focus her attention on those few dancers and even get a false impression that all the employees were dancing thus.

After a while, Johnny Castle and Penny Johnson come into the staff quarters, and they dance much better even than the few who practice in their basements.


Do Johnny and Penny dance so much better because they have spent a lot of time and effort learning how Negroes dance? Maybe a little. Much more than that, though, Johnny and Penny learned how Latin Americans dance.

Most of all, Johnny and Penny had learned how Caucasians like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and Bob Fosse danced.

The hotel employees who watched and admired Johnny's and Penny's dancing did not perceive that their dancing was basically "soul dancing" or "Negro dancing" or based on African-American musical culture -- even though Johnny and Penny happened to be dancing to a Negro song.

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Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing in the 1951 movie American in Paris.


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Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds dancing in the 1952 movie Dancing in the Rain.



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Ann-Margret dancing in the 1962 movie State Fair (skip to 2:20)


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Ann-Margret dancing in the 1966 movie Made in Paris.


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This is the end of my series of posts about Richard Dyer's article "White Enough".

Choreography of Alvin Ailey

Choreographer Alvin Ailey, an African-American, was born in 1931 and enjoyed an influential career after about 1958, when he founded his Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. I found the following YouTube videos of his choreography through 1963.



These performances seem to be done later than 1963, but the choreography was performed originally by the end of 1963.

Choreography of Katherine Dunham

Choreographer Katherine Dunham, an African-American, was born in 1909 and enjoyed an influential career, especially during the 1940s and 1950s. After 1948, however, she and her company performed outside the USA, with only a few brief exceptions.

I found the following YouTube videos featuring Dunham or her choreography.





Choreography of Bob Fosse

Bob Fosse was born in 1927 and began dancing professionally at a young age. During World War Two, he served in a special unit that toured to entertain US troops in the Pacific Theater. After the War, he settled in New York City and continued to work as a dancer and choreographer.

In 1953, the MGM movie company hired him to choreograph dance performances in movies.  During the following decade -- through 1963 -- his choreography was featured in the movies and Broadway Plays Give a Girl a Break, The Affairs of Dobbie Gillis, Kiss Me Kate, Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Bells Are Ringing, Redhead, New Girl in Town, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

He continued to work as a choreographer almost until his death in 1987.

(To watch the first video, click on the image and then click on the link Watch this movie on YouTube.)





Couples Dancing in Movies in the Early 1960s


The Young Ones -- 1961


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Gidget Goes Hawaiian -- 1961 (skip to about 1:30)


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West Side Story -- 1961


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Summer Holiday  -- 1963


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Bye Bye Birdie -- 1963

Couples Dancing in Movies in the Late 1950s -- 2


Silk Stockings-- 1957



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Damn Yankees -- 1958


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L'l Abner -- 1959


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The Five Pennies -- 1959

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Couples Dancing in Movies in the Late 1950s -- 1


Oklahoma -- 1955



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Guys and Dolls -- 1955



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Carousel -- 1956


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Invitation to the Dance -- 1956


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Les Girls -- 1957

"Dirty Dancing" Is White Enough -- Part 3

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.

In this article I use the words Negro and Caucasian, because they were the polite words in the early 1960s.

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Richard Dyer's article "White Enough" about the movie Dirty Dancing includes the following key statement:
... historically, where the [movie's] dance comes from -- albeit mixed with other sources, albeit filtered and exaggerated by white perceptions -- is African-American musical culture.
In my article's Part 2 and 3, I am offering a different perspective on the importance of Negro culture in the movie's dancing. I am arguing that Negro culture was only a minor contributor to the movie's dancing.

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Kenny Ortega, the movie's choreographer, explains how he created the "dirty dancing" style (2:55 to 3:48 in the the following video).
"Dirty dancing" is like soul dancing -- only with a partner. [There is] a little mambo thrown in and a little Cuban motion thrown in. It's sort of a conglomeration that is based on all the original dancing of the early sixties. ...

We work-shopped with eight principal dancers and came up with what I think is a really wonderful idea, based on an authentic dance style of the early sixties, of the period.
I assume that Ortega means that "soul dancing" essentially is Negro dancing and that soul dancing normally is not done with a partner.

The following video shows Ortega creating and explaining the movie's "dirty dancing". When I myself watch the video, I do not perceive any "soul dancing" (Negro dancing). Rather, I perceive only Latin dancing. I suppose the dancing might be called mambo or Cuban motion. I don't get why Ortega calls such dancing "soul dancing".


There are practically no videos that meet both of the following criteria:

1) Show Negroes dancing as couples in the late 1950s or early 1960s

2) The dancing looks like the "dirty dancing" in our movie.

 I found the the following video from 1965. There, after about 17:20, you can glimpse some Negro couples dancing what I would call soul dancing.


Maybe someone else can find many more videos that meet both those criteria. I will be happy to show them on my blog. Send me the links at MikeSylwester@gmail.com

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The reality is that a large group of resort hotel employees at a party in 1963 would not dance the "dirty dancing" shown in the movie. Perhaps a few might dance that way, and perhaps that few might preoccupy Baby Houseman's attention as she walked through the room.

Furthermore, those few who were "dirty dancing" would not (in my opinion) perceive that they were dancing in a soul (Negro) style. Rather, they would perceive that they were dancing in a Latin (or perhaps jazz) style.

Young people of that era had grown up watching the I Love Lucy television series, which (1951-1957), which featured Latin dancing in most episodes. Lucy's husband Desi owned a nightclub that featured Cuban music and dancing.




Latin dancing was featured also on the Lawrence Welk show. My blog used to have a couple of posts (this and that) showing videos of such dancing, but all the videos have been removed from YouTube.

There were no television shows -- or movies -- that similarly featured Negro dancing. Basically, only single Negro males (not male-female couples) were shown dancing -- tap-dancing (like Sammy Davis, Jr.) or novelty dancing (like Chubby Checker).

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Of course, Negroes were dancing as couples a lot during the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, Caucasians did not see much of it and were not influenced much by it -- even Caucasian teenagers dancing in their homes' basements.

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Continued at

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The "Don't Step on the One" Scene -- 2

In a previous article titled The "Don't Step on the One" Scene, I speculated about the intended placement of this (deleted) scene in the movie.


I speculated that the scene showed Johnny and Baby practicing for the talent show.

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I now offer a different explanation, based on the July 1986 script. The intended placement of the above, deleted scene might have been where the "Love Is Strange" takes place in the final movie. The July 1986 script says:
Door is open upstairs. Baby and Johnny are fooling around. She's playing teaching him to do the cha cha.
The scene's soundtrack is not specified, but I assume that a record player would be playing a cha-cha song.

The script describes the scene at the very bottom of page 74 and very top of page 75 (click on an image to enlarge it).

Page 74

Page 75
The deleted scene plays cha-cha music and shows Baby and Johnny dancing a cha-cha. The deleted scene does not, however, show her "teaching him to do the cha cha". I speculate that the people filming the scene could not figure out a transition -- from him teaching her -- to her teaching him.

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Subsequently, the scene with the cha-cha music was discarded, and an alternate scene was filmed with the song "Love Is Strange".


Script writer Eleanor Bergstein has described the "Love Is Strange" innovation.
Love is Strange. The script says "Baby is teaching Johnny to dance." Kenny [Ortega] and I worked out the routine in my motel room the night before. The executives came running onto the set after it was shot -- the song was not listed on the carefully calibrated chart of songs we could afford. There was no budget for it -- and worst of all -- we'd had the actors "lip synch," meaning we couldn't replace it with a cheaper song and might have to scrap the whole scene. Luckily everyone agreed after they saw it the scene was to good to scrap. You do what you have to do.
The only place in the July 1986 script where something like "Baby is teaching Johnny to dance" is written is at the bottom of page 74. There is says, however, that she is "teaching him to do the cha cha".

The replacement of cha-cha music by "Love Is Strange" was unplanned and fortuitous.

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Since the movie's remaining budget could not afford to buy the rights to "Love Is Strange", the producers had to do what they had to do.

I think that part of the solution was to cancel the purchase of the rights to Lesley Gore singing "You Don't Own Me". That song still is in the movie, but it is sung instead by the Blow Monkeys.

I think that another part of the solution was to allow Franke Previte to retain all the rights to his song "Time of My Life".

Perhaps Eleanor Bergstein also relinquished some (or all) of her scriptwriter royalties.

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The July 1986 script does not include any other scenes showing Johnny and Baby practicing for the talent show.

Monday, March 25, 2019

The July 1986 Script -- 14

Continued from -- The beginning of this series

Click on an image to enlarge it.

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Page 89
Johnny: I grew up in the same city [Philadelphia] with people like this -- they're rich and they're mean.

Manny (Max): This man [Jake] saved my life, young lady. No, you can't tell me anything unless he's right there in the room with you.   

Baby decides that she must tell Johnny's alibi to Max in her parents' presence.

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Page 90
Page 91
Page 92
Page 93
Page 94
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Continued at

Monday, March 18, 2019

The July 1986 Script -- 13

Continued from -- The beginning of this series

Click on an image to enlarge it.

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Page 80
The conversation between Lisa and Robbie is not in the final movie.

Lisa is wearing a picture hat (images). Robbie is wearing a chorus-girl costume (images) for a drag chorus.

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Page 81
Moe's last name is Porter in the script but Pressman in the final movie.

Mr. Schumacher: "You're a regular Frankie Lane [Laine]. Klippota klop, klippita klop."

Shumacher is comparing Moe's singing of the song "Don't Fence Me In" (page 79 of this script) to Frankie Laine's singing of the same song. (Laine sang the theme song for the popular television show Rawhide, which was broadcast from 1959 to 1965.)

Two scenes are omitted from a previous script.

Baby and Johnny meet for sex in a boathouse.

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Page 82
While Lisa is finding Robbie in bed with Vivian, Baby and Johnny are dancing and screwing.

Johnny is trying to teach Baby to slow down.

The soundtrack is playing a new song, with the rhythm of "Twist and Shout".

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Page 83

Page 84

Page 85
Baby comes alone to Neil's office to tell him alone that she was with Johnny when Moe's wallet was stolen.

Part of the evidence against Johnny is that he had seen how much money was in Moe's wallet.

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Page 86
Since Neil will not undo the firing of Johnny, Baby must go confess to her father so that he will intercede for Johnny. Baby does not confess to her mother too.

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Page 87
Jake compares Johnny to Gentile boys who picked on him when he was a Jewish schoolboy. This dialogue was removed from the final movie.

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Page 88
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Continued at

Miscellaneous Videos - 92






Sunday, March 17, 2019

The July 1986 Script -- 12

Continued from -- The beginning of this series

Click on an image to enlarge it.

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Page 75

Page 76
While Johnny is complaining to Baby about Neil, the soundtrack plays the song "You Don't Own Me" by Lesley Gore.

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Page 77
Johnny: "When I don't have a dance gig, I work with my dad. He's a house painter"."

The movie audience does not hear Lisa elaborate about the domino theory.

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Page 78
Johnny: "Jews don't like Catholics."

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Page 79
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Continued at

Dancing "Time of My Life" in a Mini-Dress -- 19






"Dirty Dancing" Is White Enough -- Part 2

This post follows up Part 1.

I use the words Negro and Caucasian because they were the polite words in the early 1960s.

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Richard Dyer's article "White Enough" about the movie Dirty Dancing includes the following key statement:
... historically, where the [movie's] dance comes from -- albeit mixed with other sources, albeit filtered and exaggerated by white perceptions -- is African-American musical culture.
In my article here I will offer a different perspective on the importance of Negro culture in the movie's dancing. I will argue that Negro culture was only a minor contributor to the movie's dancing.

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Dyer points out correctly that 10 of 16 songs in the movie were performed by Negro singers. However, the predominance of Negro music does not prove necessarily a predominance of Negro dancing.

The hotel employees dancing in the staff quarters could listen to and appreciate Negro music all the time, because such music was widely available on records and radio. However, the hotel employees had relatively fewer opportunities to watch Negroes dancing.

In 1963, American society still was racially segregated to a great extent, even in the non-Southern states. Negroes lived mostly in Negro neighborhoods and socialized among themselves. The government still had not begun to bus students to far schools in order to balance school's racial compositions. Negroes attended Negro colleges. Those Negroes who attended Caucasian colleges strove to assimilate into Caucasian culture.

Negroes appeared relatively rarely on movies or on television. Those who did were good-looking, well-mannered, pleasant, popular performers like Nat King Cole and Sidney Poitier.

Nat King Cole and Sidney Poitier

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Caucasian audiences occasionally watched Sammy Davis, Jr., dance, but he did tap-dancing to jazz music. As far as I know, he never performed a couple's dance.


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The Negro dancer who made the biggest impression on popular dance by 1963 was Chubby Checker, who introduced the twist.


However, the twist was not considered to be "dirty dancing". Rather, it was a simple dance that anyone could do without any lessons or practice. See my previous article The 1962 Movie Don't Knock the Twist.

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The following video shows Little Richard performing at what looks like a theater at a Caucasian college in the year 1963. The performance can be categorized as Negro music, but the Caucasian students all are dancing the twist. Nobody is dancing like the "dirty dancing" in our movie.


These 1963 Caucasian college students are relatively sophisticated and are learning to appreciate Negro music, but they still have not been influenced significantly by any Negro dancing beyond the twist.

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Caucasian young people did not have easy opportunities to watch Negro couples dancing until the television show Soul Train began to broadcast in October 1971.


None of the characters in Dirty Dancing never had watched any such dancing on television or in movies. The only opportunity to watch such dancing in 1963 was to go to a Negro club, and practically no Caucasians ever did so.

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See my previous articles:

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced During the 1950s -- 1

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced During the 1950s -- 2

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced During the 1950s -- 3

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced During the 1950s -- 4

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced in 1963 -- 1

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced in 1963 -- 2

How Caucasian Young Adults Danced in 1963 -- 3

How did hotel employees dance in 1963?

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I will continue in Part 3.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

The July 1986 Script -- 11

Continued from -- The beginning of this series

Click on an image to enlarge it.

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Page 64
The soundtrack was supposed to play an "original song" when Baby entered Johnny's cabin.

Baby sits down on Johnny's bed. He sits on a chair.

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Page 65
Page 66

Page 67
Baby initiates the kissing.

"They begin to make love."

Baby has "lost her father".

Baby is shown sneaking into the hotel bedroom where Lisa is sleeping. Lisa pretends to keep sleeping.

The scene where Lisa is talking to Baby as they walk to breakfast was filmed but was not included in the final movie, but is in a montage of deleted scenes.

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Page 68
Robbie serves the Houseman family at breakfast. He is hurt, because Johnny has beat him up. Robbie lies that he is suffering from bursitis.

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Page 69
That afternoon, Jake angrily practices driving golf balls, even though it's raining.

Marjorie guesses that Baby is with Lisa, but Baby is in bed with Johnny.

The song "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by the Shirelles is playing on Johnny's record player.

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Page 70
Jake still is driving golf balls in the rain, while Baby still is in bed with Johnny.

Jake sees Lisa, who is not with Baby.

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Page 71
Rich women give him their room keys two or three times a day -- different women.

Jake, suspecting that Baby is with Johnny, is walking toward the staff house.

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Page 72
Johnny tells Baby that the rich older women (two or three a day) "don't know anything about loving".

Johnny and Baby "start to make love again."

Jake reaches Johnny's door. Because of the heavy rain, he does not hear his daughter making love inside.

Neil distracts Jake from opening Johnny's door. Jake decides not to open the door, and he leaves.

This is a rather long sequence of scenes. Does "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" play all this time?

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Page 73
Johnny: "Frances? Frances? That's a real grown-up name. But you're still Baby to me."

Penny sees Baby coming out of Johnny's room. Penny tells Baby that she is worried about Johnny because of his involvement with Baby.

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Page 74
Ricco is teaching some hotel employees how to dance for the talent show. Everyone knows that Johnny is sexually involved with Baby, and Ricco is making fun of that knowledge. Ricco suggests that Johnny is wooing Baby so that she will keep paying him for dance lessons.

While Ricco is saying all this, Baby enters the room and hears his talk.

Ricco sees Baby and grabs her and makes her dance with him. He touches both her breasts.

Johnny enters the room and sees Ricco abusing Baby. Johnny grabs Ricco, drags him outside and beats him up.

"Baby and Johnny look at each other. They're both way over their heads in the emotion they feel, and in the suddenly hostile world in they they are trying to navigate being in love."

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Continued at

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

"Dirty Dancing" Is White Enough -- Part 1

The book The Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture, published in 2013, edited by Yannis Tzioumakis and Siân Lincoln, is a collection of scholarly essays about the movie.

http://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/time-our-lives
The cover of the book
"The Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture"
I already have published twelve blog articles about the book and its articles:
Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture

Is Dirty Dancing a Musical?

Straightness and Dirtiness in Dirty Dancing

Generic Hybridity in Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing as a Teenage Rite-of-Passage Film

Dirty Dancing as Reagan-era Cinema and "Reaganite Entertainment"

Anachronistic Music in Dirty Dancing

Dressing and Undressing in Dirty Dancing: Consumption, Gender, and Visual Culture in the 1980s

Dirty Dancing: Feminism, Postfeminism and Neo-Feminism

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life": Romantic Nostalgia and the Early 1960s

"There Are a Lot of Things About Me That Aren't What You Thought": The Politics of Dirty Dancing

"It's a Feeling; A Heartbeat": Nostalgia, Music, and Affect in Dirty Dancing
Now I will review another of the book's articles -- "White Enough", written by Richard Dyer.

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Richard Dyer
The book identifies Richard Dyer as follows:
Richard Dyer teaches film studies at King's College London and the University of St. Andrews. He is working on a book on serial killers in European Cinema and on La dolce vita.
I will summarize this article in this Part 1 and then criticize it fundamentally in Part 2.

I will use the words Negro and Caucasian because those were the polite words in the early 1960s.

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In my own words, I summarize the article's essence as follows:
The movie's "dirty dancing" is based on Negro musical culture, but the movie shows practically no Negroes. (The only substantial Negro character is Tito Sanchez, the band leader.)

However, the absence of Negroes is justified by the movie's historical realism.
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The article's first three pages generally relates the movie's dancing to the movie's sexual activities. The movie includes both clean dancing and dirty dancing. Examples of the clean dancing happen in the hotel's ballroom, where the dancing "lacks any sense of overt sexual drive". Examples of the dirty dancing happen in the staff quarters, where the dancing has "an explicit sexual dimension".

Dyer points out "two exceptions to the sense of dance as sexual".
* The bandleader Tito Sanchez's "delicate, easy dancing" with Max Kellerman during the first-night dance.

* Johnny's and Baby's performance at the Sheldrake Hotel.
Johnny and Baby dance together at the Sheldrake only because Penny must be away. The Sheldrake performance does not express a sexual relationship between Johnny and Baby.

In contrast to the Sheldrake performance, the talent-show performance at the movie's end does express a sexual relationship between Johnny and Baby. Her leap into the air symbolizes "the transcendence of orgasm". Her leap into the air inspires all the people in the talent-show audience to join the dancing "in a routine closer in spirit to communal celebration ... to let their hair down in the key of sexuality...."

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Then the article addresses the movie's racial aspects. He divides the characters into two groups -- white and not-so-white -- which generally correspond to the clean and dirty dancing. This division gives the movie an "explicit, albeit unspoken, racial/ethnic component". He points out:
The Johnny character was initially Italian-American and ultimately Irish-American.

Latin-American dancing is mentioned and featured throughout the movie.

Lisa dances a Hawaiian dance.

The dancers in the staff quarters are racially mixed.
Dyer summarizes that "a great deal of the dancing ... is coded as not-quite-white". Then he refines that generalization more specifically:
... historically, where the [movie's dirty] dance comes from -- albeit mixed with other sources, albeit filtered and exaggerated by white perceptions -- is African-American musical culture.
Although the movie's dirty dancing supposedly comes from Negro culture, however, there are only glimpses of Negroes dancing -- or doing anything else -- in the movie. This discrepancy is the main theme of Dyer's article.

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Although Negro characters are absent from the movie, Negro music pervades the movie. Dyer specifies:
The soundtrack uses songs of the period, with a high proportion of black artists:
* The Ronettes ("Be My Baby")

* The Contours (“Do You Love Me?”)

* Otis Redding (“Love Man,” “These Arms of Mine”)

* Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs (“Stay”)

* The Drifters (“Some Kind of Wonderful”)

* Solomon Burke (“Cry to Me”)

* The Shirelles (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”)

* Mickey and Sylvia (“Love Is Strange”)

* Merry Clayton (“Yes”)

* The Five Satins (“In the Still of the Night
This is eleven black tracks contrasted against another six white ones:
* Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons ("Big Girls Don't Cry")

* Tom Johnston (“Where Are You Tonight?”)

* Eric Carmen (“Hungry Eyes”)

* Zappacosta (“Overload”)

* Bruce Channel (“Hey! Baby”)

* The Blow Monkeys (“You Don’t Own Me”)
Frankie Valli and Zappacosta are Italian-American, and there is also the Hispanic group Melon providing “De Todo un Poco” for Johnny and Baby’s Sheldrake number, beefing up the not-quite-white quotient.
Dyer seems to indicate that the movie's Negro music and associated dirty dancing are relatively more sexual.
The black tracks are especially significant in terms of sexuality. The first dirty dancing Baby sees is done to the Contours, which not only suggests dance as a progression to love (“Do you love me now that I can dance?”) but also links this in the lyrics to specific black, and probably dirty, dances: the Mashed Potato and the Twist (both emphasising the groin area).

Baby’s first dance with Johnny, which creates a certain sexual frisson (already set up by her interested looks at him), is to Redding’s “Love Man.” Their first love-making is to Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me”; a later post-coital sequence has the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” playing in the background, and another sexually charged sequence involves, as noted above, Mickey and Sylvia’s “Love Is Strange?"
In contrast, the movie's Caucasian music is relatively less sexual.
The white artists’ tracks have little weight in the sexual narrative, the most important being Eric Carmen and Bruce Channel accompanying Baby learning Penny’s part for the Sheldrake show

When sex seems to be rearing its head (Johnny standing behind Baby and making a caressing movement down her arm), she keeps breaking into giggles and he becomes increasingly frustrated; when they may sense that something more than professional is developing between them, when they are practicing lifts in a lake, “(I’ve Had) lie Time of My life” seeps in unsung on the soundtrack. The latter, along with Swayze’s “She Like the Wind?” are the culmination of the sexual/romantic narrative:
* “She’s Like the Wind” is first heard when Johnny and Baby say goodbye, and

* “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” is he music for their, and eventually everyone’s, dance at the final show.
(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” is sung by the it-doesn’t-get-whiter-than-this duo Bill Medley and Jennifer Wanes. It’s a number written for the film and, stylistically, clearly from the period in which the film was made rather than when it was set; it is also perhaps as far from black influence as it is possible for pop music to get (which is to say, course, not utterly untouched by it).
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Dyer then discusses the discrepancy between the absence of Negro characters and the pervasiveness of Negro music and dancing. The movie is largely realistic, but with a few "utopian impulses". In my own words, the realism is that no or only a few Negroes would be present in the 1963-Jewish-resort situation that the movie depicts. The utopianism is that more Negroes should have been present. Some utopianism is justified, because the musical genre is rather utopian. Dyer writes:
.... realism prevents the film from getting very far with this [the inclusion of Negroes] for fear of falling into improbability. ....

Dirty Dancing is in some ways quite surprisingly realist in its delineation of the class and gender politics of its period.

But it is also musical, and one that draws more and more on the genre’s utopian impulses as it goes along. The story of the girl plucked from obscurity (whether in the chorus or not) to become a star is a perennial theme of dance-based films ....

Folding everyone into community [everyone joining the dance at the end of the movie] is also a trope of the musical. ... Both of these tropes, as they are used in Dirty Dancing, have little to do with realism. Moreover, as they involve a musical move toward the 1980s ... it might have been possible to let go of plausibility vis-a-vis the racial divisions of the early 1960s.
The final, talent-show scene combines the realism with some "utopian impulses'.
In fact, what happens is that there is a whitening of the film, both visually and musically. The choreographic climax of Johnny and Frances’ final number occurs when she leaps up and is caught and held aloft by him ... In racial terms, Frances, spread out above Johnny. dominating the frame, is bathed in a dazzling white light that makes her look blonder, the apotheosis of the traditional affinity between light and white female glamour.

The transformation of their number into the final community/production number is initiated and led by Johnny in a move more common in action movies over the past twenty years, where women and non-whites are gathered in but always under the leadership of a white man ....
On one hand, Baby's personal whiteness is exaggerated, but on the other hand, the ultimate communal celebration dance includes all the mixed-race employees.

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Dyer then compares Negro and Jewish histories. Both groups were stigmatized, outcast and isolated from the surrounding, dominant cultures. Therefore Jews felt some affinity with and appreciation toward Negro culture. In particular, Jewish artists borrowed from and promoted Negro artistry during the first half of the 20th Century.

During the second half of the 20th Century, however, Jews assimilated into the dominant culture much faster and more successfully than Negroes did. The movie depicts successful Jews who have assimilated well, even though they vacation at a resort hotel that still, in 1963, hosts mostly Jews.

By 1987, when the movie was released, movie audiences were largely ignorant of the Jews' long-ago special affinity with Negroes. The movie does depict the friendship of Max Kellerman and Tito Suarez, but did not attempt to portray these Jewish characters still sharing in 1963 a special affinity with Negro music and dancing. Furthermore, the movie's Jewish aspect was minimized.

Dyer writes:
It would be possible to see Dirty Dancing and not register the fact that it has a Jewish setting. ... The Jewish setting gives particular resonances to the present-absent African-American elements in at least a couple of ways.

* One relates to the long history of Jews and black music in the USA, discussed by Jeffrey Melnick in his A Right to Sing the Blues (1999). Many works that defined African-American musical identity for a wider audience were produced by Jews ....

* By the time of Dirty Dancing, [there was a] shift in the perception of Jews in America away from the ghetto and the oppression-sharing status of racial inferiority. There [was a new Jewish] distance between segregation and a model of assimilation, in which Jewishness all but disappears in the light of whiteness.

This move is also enacted in the narrative. By dancing, sleeping, and siding with Johnny, Frances is making a bid to marry out, having at the start been paired by her parents and the resort with a nice Jewish boy with good prospects. .... We do not of course know if Johnny and Frances will marry ... but the conventions of romance suggest this is the logical development. Strictly speaking, Frances marrying a Gentile ... does not preclude the reproduction of Jewishness, but it certainly muddies the waters ....

Perhaps the persistence of Dirty Dancing’s nostalgia for a time of optimism, liberalism, and emerging sexual freedom is also nostalgia for a time when all of that could still take place under the sign of whiteness.
In my article's Part 2, I will criticize Dyer's article.