The Politics of "Dirty Dancing" -- Part 2

Continued from Part 1

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Oliver Gruner, author of the scholarly article "The Politics of Dirty Dancing", perceives that Jake Houseman is "the symbolic authority figure for ... middle-class American society".

Baby’s personal journey is predicated on her breaking away from the intense grip that her father, Dr. Jake Houseman, holds on her political beliefs and personal life. Dr. Houseman is the symbolic authority figure for both the Houseman family and middle-class American society more generally. When Baby begins to question his values she also is challenging what is represented in this film as broader social and political norms governing the behavior of women in the early 1960s. ... Dr. Houseman, as is the case with many of the middle-class characters at Kellerman’s, also holds rather conservative views towards women and the working classes.

Throughout the film, Baby becomes increasingly aware of her father and his friends’ unwillingness to put abstract egalitarian ideas into practice.

Other characters likewise are politically symbolic.

* Max Kellerman loses his "moral authority" when he sets different rules for the "well-to-do wait staff" and for the "working-class Johnny" about their dealings with female guests. This differentiation is an example of "the regressive politics lurking behind the ... liberal veneer".

* Robbie Gould is a "sneering, snobbish and thoroughly immoral college boy" who has a "selfish attitude". He is a "heartless individualist".

* Neil Kellerman is "a negative representation of the New Left man — he is to go on a civil rights Freedom Ride after all — whose political convictions are bound up with rather archaic views on masculinity." He symbolizes "the hypocrisy existing not just amongst older liberals but amongst a new generation of politically active young men who still equated invigorated citizenship with masculinity; viewing it as a triumph over effeminacy."

* Lisa Houseman "cannot countenance love as anything more than a pathway to marriage and social status".

* Marjorie Houseman is "the typical housewife: domesticated, loyal to her husband, and devoted to her children."

In contrast to those characters, Baby Houseman develops her own political attitudes in a genuinely progressive direction.

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The movie's music has political significance.

... In the early 1960s, pop music became the one area of popular culture in which adolescent female voices could be clearly heard. Articulating female desires and anxieties in a far more direct manner than was common at the time, [girl-group songs] .... helped teenage girls to come to terms with their own hopes, desires, and sexuality." Such music offered "Baby an escape from the confines placed upon her by the family, and, more generally, by middle-class mores."

Political folk singers (e.g. Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan) "were at this time challenging overtly the political establishment through the lyrics of their songs. Their music was, however, missing the visceral kick and sexual aggression of Johnny’s soul music. Baby is already in possession of the outward-looking liberal politics of these folk singers; the soul music facilitates her turn inward."

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After the movie was released, its political aspects were not appreciated adequately.

Baby no longer simply parrots her father’s political rhetoric but instead reveals its limitations and stands up to his hypocrisy Her sabbatical from middle-class society and by extension the oppressive expectations placed upon “good” middle-class female behavior, allow her to develop her own political and ethical code.

She is ... a changed woman who is similarly capable of changing other people’s political and social outlooks. Taking Baby’s lead, the final dance sees previously staid and stolid men and women come together in a collective expression of social and sexual freedom. ...

Dirty Dancing did provide enough political and cultural touchstones to at least indicate an attempt to inspire serious dialogue and debate on several issues of importance. Contemporaneous reception indicates, however, that this attempt was largely unsuccessful.

Gruner explains that by 1987, when the movie was released, feminist concerns largely were taken for granted. Feminist concerns were no longer remarkably controversial.

.... feminism and women’s memories of the Sixties had, to some extent, been evacuated of political significance. For example, Susan Douglas argues that the 1980s saw numerous attempts on the part of the advertising industry to court the “liberated woman.” Ads for cosmetics, clothes, and exercise equipment tipped their hats to the feminist movement while the same time erasing its political agency. “Women’s liberation metamorphosed into female narcissism," argues Douglas. Individuality and self-empowerment were reduced to improving one’s appearance and having a good time. ....

One might link such sentiments to Dirty Dancing’s famous promotional tagline: “Have the of your life” — an apolitical appeal to individual desires. ....

The emphasis [in the marketing of the movie] on romance and the absence of any historical context suggests the film to be less about real issues and important events than about personal wish-fulfillment, or having “the time of your life.”

And, a few dissenting voices notwithstanding, critical reception followed suit, ignoring Dirty Dancing’s politicized narrative of the recent American past.

Gruner provides many examples of reviews that ignored the movie's political aspects. (In general, Gruner provides good evidence for his various arguments.)

Dirty Dancing failed to enter [political] debate to any significant degree. Even the controversial abortion subplot was dismissed as a distraction. When reviewers referenced this subplot, it was usually in a very brief sentence. .... Generally, no one was willing to discuss the abortion, and rarely mentioned any of the film’s other political issues.

The movie's political aspects did not begin to receive their due appreciation until the late 1990s -- a decade after the movie was released. This appreciation has continued to grow to the present.

A generation after Dirty Dancing’s theatrical release, the film has enjoyed its own political awakening.

Again, I say that Gruner provides good evidence for his evaluations.

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Gruner concludes his article:

.... a widespread unwillingness to treat Baby’s transformation as anything but wish fulfillment and fodder for personal/sexual desires meant that Dirty Dancing’s political representation initially received little coverage in the public sphere. This reading was influenced by broader discourses in which feminism frequently found itself either being attacked outright as a negative social phenomenon or re-configured ... as “empowered consumption.”

The suggestion that Dirty Dancing embodied mindless and disposable entertainment is all the more ironic given that this film, in terms of its cultural profile, has gone from strength to strength. Its success on VHS and DVD and the constant Dirty Dancing revival screenings at cinemas indicate that it has had at least as long a lasting impact as films like Platoon, JFK, and Forrest Gump.

That political commentators too did not incorporate Dirty Dancing into their debates to the same extent as they did the other three [movies] may say as much about what they considered “important historical subject matter as it did about the films’ textual content. Male-centered narratives and pictures dealing with prominent public figures tend to be ascribed a gravitas that films dealing with private relationships, no matter how political, fail to achieve.

Nevertheless, the film’s enduring popularity and its recent critical re-evaluation indicate a new-found feeling that, to paraphrase Baby, there is a lot more to Dirty Dancing than was initially thought.

I liked Gruner's article a lot.

I did not find the article on the Internet. As far as I know, the article is available to read only in the book.