We were in a cafe of course and somehow got onto the topic of John Swayze. Look, I don't care what you think, Marxy, but Dirty Dancing was a great movie. A. laments, why does every girl I date love that movie and want to watch it with me?
And so I began into a rather long rant of why Dirty Dancing is an outstanding movie and why a Marxist like him should take note of the class struggle in a Catskill mountain resort in the 60s.
Before I begin, I should note that having watched this movie almost every week when I was a child, I could recite it line by line and once even owned the soundtrack--both soundtracks.
The movie couldn't be set up more perfectly than it's opening line, a line that should be remembered like Tolstoy's: "That was the summer of 1963 - when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman's."
It was the summer before rebellion, before a modern age that presidents could be shot on television, before rock'n'roll, before a nice upper-middle class girl could think of anything better to help the world than joining the Peace Corps and when she is still in love with her father.
Enter an upper-middle class family; dad is a doctor, mom is a housewife; older sister is smart and younger sister is pretty. Frances or "Baby" is concerned with underdeveloped nations and wants to help the world by going into the Peace Corps. Lisa is concerned with finding her beige iridescent lipstick. Both fall prey to various matchmaking schemes by both family and owner of resort; Baby to the grandson of the owner, Neil, a pompous, ineffectual nerd and Robby a waiter saving money to go to med school. Both recognized as stellar choices; both total boneheads, but Robby proves to be a real bastard, impregnating the star dancer and leaving her high and dry.
Enter "bad boy" Johnny, who doesn't seem to really have any vices other than wearing tank tops and pants, perpetually in black throughout the film. There is some hint that he was involved with the "bungalow bunnies" in past seasons and the owner tells him to keep his hands off. Penny, the star dancer gets preggers by Robby and ends up tragically not being in the big show.
I think this movie appeals to women for a few different reasons. First, good ole sibling rivalry. Baby and Lisa enter their summer as virgins and sisters who don't particularly like each other. They constantly bicker is safe, 60s appropriate banter: "Butt out, Baby" "Oh Lisa's going to decorate [the world]."
But the main reason, is that the quintessential smart girl gets the bad boy. However, it is also a movie about deceiving appearances. Baby turns out to be a very sexy, rebellious woman and Johnny isn't the bad ass that everyone wants him to be--he tries to help Penny when she becomes pregnant and offers what little is left of his salary to cover her illegal abortion. Later he tries to thank Baby's father for what he did for Penny and tell him that Baby is a wonderful woman who turned out just the way he wanted. It should also be noted that he does not tell him that Robbie is the one who actually got Penny pregnant. You get the feeling that Baby doesn't lead a particularly rebellious life--she never lies to her parents, she's going to college etc. Baby sees no other way to save this young girl's life other than ask her father for money for an illegal abortion, then when it becomes botched she goes to her father in the middle of night for his assistance to save Penny's life and knowing he would not alert the authorities. All the dance kids stand around while Penny is bleeding not being able to call for a doctor. They all have slightly numb expressions, like this is just the way it is. Johnny attempts a whole-hearted thanks to the doctor, who brushes him off, wrongly thinking that he was the one who impregnated this poor butchered girl. The father forbids Baby to have anything to so with those people again.
But Baby isn't in the corner yet. She goes to Johnny's studio to unpack the night's events. First Johnny is distinctly embarrassed by the small, dirty space he inhabits and tries to clean it up saying, sorry, I'm sure you have a better room. Baby replies, louder than she has to, "No, it's a great room." Then, they have a discussion about what each one thinks about the other. She attempts to apologize for her father's behavior. Johnny knows what she is talking about, but is a gentlemen, and says, No, the way he was with Penny was great. (For all his inconsistencies, he does have a great bedside manner.) But Baby insists, "No, the way he was with you." Again, Johnny brushes it off saying, "No, I mean the way he saved her. I mean, I... I could never do anything like that. That was somethin'. The reason people treat me like I'm nothin' is 'cause I'm nothin'.
Baby reacts: "You, you're everything!"
"I never met someone like you, someone's lost, you find them, someone's bleeding--" "Yeah I go get my Daddy, that's really brave. Like you said."
"That took a lot of guts to go to him. You are not scared of anything."
"Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."
Both these underdog characters fall in love with each other not because of they mythologized personalities but because of who they really are; Johnny is not the rebellious bad ass nor is Baby the scared little girl who listens to Mommy and Daddy. They both have a hard time coming to terms about who they really are; Johnny thinks that he is pathetic because he couldn't do anything to help Penny and was helpless until Baby came on vacation. Baby thinks she's still Daddy's girl because she repeatedly went to him for help.
Why the Marxist should like this movie is because of the obvious class struggle in this often made fun of chronicle of Catskills resort life. It is the family's first real vacation in years pointing to the doctor's hard work building his practice and clientèle. The owner greets the family, "If it weren't for this man, I would be standing here dead." The family looks somewhat proud and used to hearing such comments.
Johnny challenges Robbie, "just lay your pickle on everybody's plate college boy and leave the hard stuff to me." He says this already knowing that Robbie got Penny pregnant, however, the audience does not. We are led to think that he implies Robbie is just a pretty play boy who dicks around, but Johnny is the real panther in the sack. Later, this would mean that Robbie sleeps around, but the "hard stuff" is helping a woman fixing the problem of an unwanted pregnancy in 1960s. It is also a pretty witty line, and all Robbie can talk about is lame ass novels like Fountainhead.
While it is pretty obvious that most of the dancers come to their profession by lack of other options we only find out about Penny and Johnny. When Baby compliments Penny on her dancing, she brushes her aside, "Well, my mother kicked me out when I was sixteen and I've been dancing every since. It's all I ever wanted to do anyway." No, there was no college for Penny, it doesn't even appear she graduated from high school. This was the only thing she ever wanted to do because no other options presented themselves. Johnny tells a story of sitting in a cafe and someone comes in and offers a chance to become a dance instructor. He says "we were all sittin' around doing nothing" meaning they were all unemployed with no other options.
Johnny talks about his desire to do something else, but he wants to get into a union. He tells Baby his father called and Uncle Paulie can finally get him into a union. Baby is hopeful, "Well, what Union?"
"House painters Union 115 at your service," Johnny says with disgust. He has no real clear objective of what he wants to do with his life; he knows he does not want to be a dancer, but he also years for something more than being a house painter. Both jobs are for uneducated labor; the waitering jobs are for guys like Robbie. The owner goes to Harvard and Yale to find them; the dancers come from broken homes in lower socioeconomic divisions.
Finally, Baby has a showdown with her father, calling him on all his hypocritical bullshit. When Johnny gets accused of stealing, Baby knows it wasn't him because she spent the night with him. Unable to bear the thought of her lover being charged with a crime he didn't commit and getting fired, she tells the resort owner and her family over breakfast that she was sleeping with Johnny that night. That took some balls in 1963. Later Baby's father refuses to talk to her because she went against his wishes; she continued to see Johnny after her father forbade it and confessed to having premarital sex. Baby confronts him, telling him, "You told me you wanted me to help people, but you meant by being like you. I'm not proud of myself, but I'm part of this family and you can't keep shutting me out." She finally realizes her father's hypocrisy; that it wasn't enough that she helped a young girl's life from being over by obtaining her an illegal, albeit almost completely botched abortion, but also saved Johnny from being criminalized. (Incidentally her mentioning of seeing the Schumachers with several wallets alerts the staff to the real culprits; another deceiving appearance: Silvia and Sydney a nice little old couple who made a fortune stealing wallets in several states.) Baby also acknowledges that blood is thicker than water; she is not proud on herself that she lied to her family and embarrassed them over some bagels, but she never regrets her actions. She tells her father, "I'm sorry I let you down, Daddy, but you let me down too."
And now, as per usual, it's time for the Jew card. Baby Houseman, Robbie Gould, Max Kellerman, Silvia and Sydney Schumacher, Vivian and Moe Pressman, all the guests and owners are Jewish. This goes totally unmentioned in the film, accept for the mention of their last names. Now, let's go back to what should be the most quoted line of the movie: "You just lay your pickle on every body's plate college boy and leave the hard stuff to me."
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