‘Still feel a jolt of joy’: why Dirty Dancing is my feelgood movie

2 hours ago 8

There is probably a Swedish word for the emotional state engendered in me by Dirty Dancing. A kind of turbo-nostalgia which blends solace, joy and a sense of continuity with a yearning so acute I can feel it in my ribs.

I must have been around 12 years old when I first watched Baby (Jennifer Grey) and Johnny (Patrick Swayze) fall in love while bumping pelvises as dance partners (before Strictly Come Dancing, this trajectory felt more surprising.)

The movie must have seemed quite raunchy to me then. Light on actual sex, but heavy on petting during extended scenes of hot, fully-clothed couples grinding to a soundtrack of objectively incredible music. Catnip, then, for curious tweenage girls.

For several years, Dirty Dancing was the wallpaper to every sleepover I went to. Its catchphrases were social currency at my girls’ school. Shouting “I carried a watermelon,” or “nobody puts Baby in the corner!” across a crowded classroom signaled a nuanced understanding of the Year 7 zeitgeist. And, of course, we all tried to do the lift. So many memories of uniformed girls landing on top of other uniformed girls at break time; so many scraped knees and elbows.

Its soundtrack was omnipresent at school discos. There were so many bangers, like The Ronette’s Be My Baby, though there was also (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life, which still strikes Pavlovian terror into my heart. Those opening lines mean: it’s slow dance time, time to hide in the loo! Because the fear of not being picked by a boy – of being publicly stranded – was just too much to bear. We were that uncool. Which was why we loved Dirty Dancing, because its protagonist, named Baby – none-too subtly for a coming-of-age tale – was a dweeb at first too.

When Baby arrives at Kellerman’s, a stale Catskills resort, in the summer of 1963, she is child-like and awkward, prone to saying embarrassing things. She yearns to be part of the world she discovers in the camp’s staff quarters. There, badass dance instructors gyrate to songs such as Do You Love Me by The Contours behind closed doors. Her dull vacation takes a turn when Johnny – the biggest badass of all, all biceps, dark glasses and oscillating pelvis – happens to urgently need a partner for an important performance. Montages, and romance, ensue.

So much has changed since I learnt this movie by heart – for me and for the world – – that when I watch it I almost can’t believe it still exists, preserved exactly as it was, looking and sounding somewhat out of time, like a dream, with its 1980s-meets-1960s soundtrack, its pastel palette and its costume design, blending 1980s perms and leotards with cat’s eye glasses and A-line frocks.

There is a mournful quality to the aesthetic as a whole, which is heavy on mist and rain, on chirping crickets and colored lanterns reflecting on the lake. Much of the soundtrack is mournful too, particularly to the song She’s Like the Wind, sung by Swayze – watching it now, knowing that he died at the age of just 57, is additionally tragic.

The dancing style, which Johnny at one point calls “soul dancing”, is clearly inspired by Black culture, but there are few Black characters, and none in starring roles. Meanwhile, the age of the characters (if not the actors, who were 26 and 34) is awkward. Baby is 17, Johnny 24, and he feels a great deal more grown up than her as the movie opens. Meanwhile, Johnny is working class, Baby is upper middle class, which plays into certain class tropes when, at the end, he says that she has “taught me about the kind of person I wanna be”.

I don’t remember noticing any of that as a child, but I do think something else struck me – even if it was subconsciously. That’s how unusual it was to see a movie in which the male character, Johnny, was the object of lust, moreso than the female lead. Though Johnny is Baby’s mentor on the dancefloor – and yes, that’s a metaphor – she notices him first, and she is the more active player when their relationship turns romantic. It still feels rare that this movie is about her wanting, not his. Having grown up watching 1980s and 1990s Disney films, my school mates and I had probably never seen that on screen before. I haven’t seen it that much since. No wonder we were so obsessed that, three decades on, I still know all the songs, dance moves and lines, and still feel a jolt of joy when Johnny kicks off that exuberant final scene by announcing that nobody puts Baby in the corner.