‘Dirty Dancing’ Is So Much More Than A Chick Flick

Find any list of the greatest “chick flicks” of all-time and there’s a good bet Dirty Dancing is on it. The love story between the youngest daughter of a Jewish doctor and a working class dance instructor at a Catskills hotel was released in theaters 30 years ago today and, ever since, its status as a classic has been accrued at slumber parties, girl’s nights and first dances at weddings. Hated by its original test audiences and left for dead with an unfavorable release date in late August, Dirty Dancing‘s surprise box office success and resulting cultural standing (multi-platinum soundtrack, 2017 TV remake, millions of dress replicas sold) can be largely credited to its passionate female fans.

But that’s only most of the story. Cast aside any preconceptions you might have about the film because Dirty Dancing is also a great movie for men, too. For reasons both shallow and profound, part of its achievement is how gracefully it made room for both sexes to have the time of their lives watching it again and again.

‘Dirty’ Looks, Sounds, and Smells

Dirty Dancing looks great, as evidenced by the golden summer lighting, breathtaking mountain scenery, and a half-dozen samples of classic American automotive design. The early ’60s classic Americans fashions, now roaringly back in style at least since the second season of Mad Men, are on proud display at Kellerman’s. Baby Houseman’s dress in the movie’s finale may be the finest example, inspiring a thousand prom, bridesmaids and wedding descendants. But don’t overlook the hotel staff’s perfect white ring t-shirts, Dr. Houseman’s skinny-tied tapered suits and Johnny’s great early Beatles chelsea boots in the last dance sequence. Great contemporary brands like Shinola, Adriano Goldschmied and American Giant have bet their collective fortunes on these sorts of styles remaining in fashion.

Dirty Dancing also sounds great. And I’m talking deep cuts, not the moments on the soundtrack you’ve never been able to escape from (“The Time of my Life”) or should never have happened in the first place (“She’s Like the Wind”). The hottest moments of the film (when Baby sees Johnny for the first time, or when they first kiss) are set to songs that would only appear on the supplemental More Dirty Dancing soundtrack album that was released nearly a year after the movie hit theaters. I’m talking about largely unheralded tracks like Otis Redding’s “Love Man” and Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me.” Believe the Dirty Dancing soundtrack is a celebration of ’80s lite rock and future wedding videos if you must, but its sexiest moments are testimonials to the power of B-sides and overlooked gems.

If it’s possible for a movie to do so, Dirty Dancing also smells and tastes great. Its finale, containing the movie’s most famous line (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner”) and song (“The Time of My Life” won an Oscar) has literally the entire cast dancing in a highly synchronized, Broadway style number. While this is the climax of the entire movie, it’s out of step with and practically chaste compared to the rest of the film’s choreography, which is is sweaty, acrobatic, and sexy as hell. Grey and Swayze’s most beloved dance sequences involve gravity defying feats of balance and strength (aka “the lift”), dangerous natural locations (a log bridging a river, a freezing cold lake), and the pouring rain. If you’ve somehow avoided seeing this movie for 30 years and are under the mistaken impression that all “dance movies” involve swishing ballgowns and men in tights, you have completely underestimated how “dirty” the dancing actually is in this film. The movie equates the muscular physicality of dance —where both Grey and Swayze contribute equally— to the changing dynamics of the its summer 1963 timeline, just months before the assassination of JFK would change everything.

“A Real Grown Up Name”

Dirty Dancing was filmed in the autumn of 1986 at resorts in both Virginia and North Carolina. The shoot couldn’t happen in the Catskills, where the film is set, because the area’s baronial mid-century resorts like Kellerman’s no longer existed. Anyone watching who had spent summers there (my mother, for example) would know the movie took place an era dead and buried. Anyone listening carefully when resort owner Max Kellerman (Jack Weston) laments at movie’s end about “trips to Europe and Disneyland. That’s what kids want. It feels like it’s all slipping away…” would know Dirty Dancing is as a much a love story as it is a film about the passing of time, about kids growing up and leaving home, about parents letting go by letting their kids take center stage in their own story.

Tucked into a movie about about love transcending social class is a subplot about love across generations. It’s tragic that the late, great Jerry Orbach’s character of Dr. Hausman is shoved unconvincingly into the role of villain. There’s no logical reason for Dr. Hausman to believe Johnny sent his pregnant dance partner (Cynthia Rhodes) to get a back alley abortion (leading Baby to step in and replace her) other than the screenplay requires a baseless objection to his daughter consorting with the help. But Grey and Orbach save the day in key scene of a parent coming to terms his daughter becoming her own person outside of his influence.

“You told me you wanted me to change the world, make it better,” Grey says in tears as Orbach manages to convey anger, sadness and acceptance with only his eyes. “But if you love me, you have to love all of the things about me. I’m sorry I let you down; I’m so sorry, daddy. But you let me down, too.”

Grey probably earned her Golden Globe nomination right here, only one of a half dozen scenes demonstrating that her performance carries the film. Swayze gets a few of these moments too, but on the whole, he’s got a lot less to do. Focus on those few moments scenes and you get Dirty Dancing working in a way different that it normally gets credit for.

There’s an old screenwriting chestnut that the main character of a movie is the one who changes and the dynamic character is the one who inspires the change. There’s also an old theater tale of a minor member of the cast of Hamlet being asked what the play is about and they reply “It’s about a gravedigger who meets the Prince of Denmark.” Both point to the same idea: A piece of drama speaks to us by whom we see the story affecting and if we relate to what happens to that character because of it, whether or not that character gets the majority of our time or the tale told from their point of view.

If we can accept any of that, in Dirty Dancing, we can imagine a parallel story to Baby’s: Johnny Castle’s own arc of change shows him learning to be a person capable of emotion and vulnerability, instead of just a body rewarded only for how well it can dance. The scene where Baby and Johnny kiss for the first time is entirely led by her desire but their pillow talk afterward is all about Johnny being able to see himself as Baby already does, as something other than the resort’s plaything for bored housewives. Baby replies by kissing him then explaining where her real name comes from. Johnny nods and says “that’s a real grown up name,” the first time their romance is acknowledged out loud for being something other than dirty dancing: Two young people seeing each other as complete thanks the belief and trust of the other.

Dirty Dancing screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein set out to create a forthright, feminist movie, told from the perspective of young woman about her journey into adulthood. She succeeded beautifully. But none of that success does or should exclude men from loving Dirty Dancing as much as I do. I’ve included a few reasons above why the movie has something for fellas but really, how many do you need? Try to sit still and not smile during that last scene. The time of your life is what you make it.

Kevin Smokler is the author of the new book Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies, out now.

Where to stream Dirty Dancing