Feminism, and feminist backlash, in 80's films: Part 1: Dirty Dancing

Summer means a lot of different things to me.   Hot days, sandals, beaches, watermelon – and Dirty Dancing. 

Released in 1987, Dirty Dancing caused a sensation, becoming a huge hit, spawning two soundtrack albums, and unsuccessful series on CBS,  and a worldwide concert tour  It launched the careers of Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze from erstwhile supporting players into the mainstream and lead roles.  Nowadays, it’s settled into an object of campy nostalgia for the many who wore out VHS tapes of it in their youth, and it’s become the sort of a summertime staple of networks like WE and Lifetime.  Fondness for the movie continues – you can buy teeshirts for it, and watch its recently spawned (and  too-late) sequel  or the Broadway musical it inspired.

There’s something very amusing about a movie like Dirty Dancing ending up a fluffy nostalgia piece that’s considered an inconsequential romantic movie.  Here’s the movie’s biggest secret:  it’s a socially radical film that embraces feminism and sisterhood, makes a strong case for abortion rights and artistic freedom, and shows a woman’s first happy sexual affair to be consequence-free in the way of romantic heartbreak and the moral weight of STDs, cheating, and pregnancy.

The plot is simple.  Frances “Baby” Houseman enters the Catskills in 1963 just after her senior year of high school.   Her nickname is indicative of her emotional stasis – a daddy’s girl who idolizes her doctor dad, she’s joining the Peace Corps after college because she believes deeply in justice –and because she wants to be like her idealized father.   Baby also has a supportive but somewhat less well-defined mother and a pesky younger sister, Lisa – and the movie’s treatment of Lisa is something that’s rather completely refreshing, but we’ll get to that.  On a holiday with her family, Baby stands on the quiet border between womanhood and childhood, and needs one event to push her over the borderline into adulthood.

Fortunately, fate provides her with one.  Bored to death by the scheduled classes Kellermans offers, Baby wanders around the grounds after dark, and makes friends with , who works in the resort’s kitchen.  Invited to help him carry watermelons through the staff quarters, she accidentally witnesses the staff’s raucous after-hours party, in which they dance raunchily with one another to the strains of early rhythm and blues music.  She is intrigued – particularly by the magnetic dance teacher Johnny Castle.

Baby wants to learn to dance like them, but Johnny considers her a hopeless case when she fails to follow his instructions.  It seems as if nothing will come of it, until she discovers that her sister’s boyfriend Robby has been cheating on her with Johnny’s dance partner, Penny.  Penny’s now pregnant, and has learned what a two-timing louse the guy is.  She’s desperate, and Baby steps forth to offer her money for an emergency back-alley abortion.

The money comes from Jake, her father, who trusts Baby and doesn’t ask her where the money’s going to be spent – indicative of the strong bond between the two of them.  With Penny KU’d, Johnny’s down a dance partner, which means  - naturally – that he has to take the awkward Baby on as a replacement.  After hours of failed rehearsals, the two finally figure out how to relate to one another…which results in a terrible first performance at a club date Johnny and Penny had booked off campus, and the discovery when they return that Penny’s abortion has been botched.  This forced Baby to seek her father’s help, which he delivers without judgment – until he mistakes Johnny’s oblique statements at Penny’s bedside for a confession that he’s the father of her child.  Appalled, Jake refuses to allow Baby to hang out with the resort’s staff, an edict she promptly ignores by sneaking off to see Johnny and lose her virginity.

They continue to meet clandestinely, an affair that goes on until Lisa discovers her boyfriend in bed with another of the resort’s guests.  Baby tells the waiter off, declaring she’ll have him fired; and for revenge, he steals a wallet and pins the theft on Johnny.  This forces Baby to come forward and admit that he couldn’t have stolen it, for she was with Johnny the entire time – and Johnny’s fired anyway.   Jake is furious with her for having an affair with Johnny, Johnny leaves Kellermans, and the resort’s final summer talent show is taken out of the hands of the staff.

Naturally, this is followed by a final triumphal moment where Baby gets to dance with Johnny, Johnny is redeemed and Baby and Jake finally make up.  Roll the dance party and cue the credits.

But the secret depth of the movie is much more complex than that. 

The movie refuses to make Baby’s path toward success easy.  It takes her weeks to master dancing, a lot of frustrated stops and starts await her toward.  The movie has the courage to not make this an Informed Attribute.

The movie’s also pretty courageous in tackling the dividing line between classes.  The Kellermans are super-rich and told not to mix with the comparatively poor “help” but do so anyway.  The warping, bending, and finally the erasure of the dividing lines between the classes  in Baby’s various relationships can be seen as a metaphor for the burgeoning sixties, with his brotherhood, sisterhood, and unified youth movement protesting the war…or participating in Vietnam as an unwilling draftee.

Then there’s the way the women in the movie interact.  The way the film treats Lisa and Baby’s relationship is wonderful.   It could have made the sisters rivals for Johnny’s affection, but instead we’re given a beautiful story about how Penny would gladly rip apart any dangerous man who looks sideways at Lisa.  She does, after all, pour ice water down Robby’s pants.   It also tells us that while sexual adventure is liberating for Baby, similar explorations with would have destroyed Lisa – and Lisa’s getting on with her life afterwards lets the audience know that selecting the wrong man isn’t the end of the world.

Then there’s Penny and Baby’s relationship.  Again, there might be an opportunity for a struggle over Johnny here, but instead the two women bond over the art of the dance and become friends.   Penny’s abortion is treated as an absolutely necessary event, and she isn’t shamed for it; instead the shame falls upon her seducer and abandoner Robby for seducing her incautiously, then abandoning her.

Speaking of seduction – here’s the thing about Johnny and Baby’s story: it’s not really about love.

No really, even though people seem to attach romantic aspirations to their relationship, and even though there’s clear camaraderie and exhilaration between them: this is a movie about a woman who unrepentantly loses her virginity and has a warm, wild affair with an older man – but there’s no huge emotional attachment between them.  The theme is “I had a great time with you” not “let’s get a house and live together forever.”  They’ve had the time of their life, and Baby will always remember this summer, but it’s about to end, and she’s about to go off to college.  Will all of that wanting translate into something deeper?   This is the sort of story men have been allowed to play for eons: to see it through a woman’s eyes is totally refreshing; which is why I prefer to think of this as a story about Baby’s coming of age, versus it being a How I Met My Husband The Dancer tale.  But that’s what’s great about the movie; it’s left open to interpretation.  If you believe they’re still together in the 80’s, they can be; if you think she never saw him again when the family packed up, she didn’t.

So, when you settle down to watch this movie next time, and when you swoon to Patrick Swayze’s authoritarian leaps and bounds, just remember that Dirty Dancing is a secret peahen to feminism, to sisterhood, to the power of women’s sexuality and the shattering of class boundaries.  And have the time of your life.