Dirty Dancing Analysis: "Dirty Dancing" Is White Enough -- Part 2

Sunday, March 17, 2019

"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.

======

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.

======

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

======

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.

======

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.

======

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.

======

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.