I should have liked "Dirty Dancing." When I first saw it, at the ripe age of thirteen, I was the perfect demographic for liking such a film -- I was young, highly impressible, grossly romantic and had that summer developed an intense appreciation of 80s music (“Walk Like an Egyptian” is still so scarily familiar to me that’s its like reliving braces and bad haircuts all over again when I hear it played). I was ready to join my fellow womankind in adoring Patrick Swayze in all his muscle tee glory. But when the credits finally rolled, I sat there, mouth agape, trying to process how I’d come to wasted minutes of my life on something so awful.
The thing about "Dirty Dancing" is not the cliché pairing of sheltered upper-class teen and a leather-clad boy from the “wrong side of the tracks.” Its not the poorly disguised 80s styling in a movie supposed set in 1963. Its not even the deep, irritatingly corny timber of Bill Meldley voice in “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life.” It’s the dancing. If young Baby’s metaphoric coming of age had been more centered around a conversations than a dance this review would end differently. But instead of an exploration of teenage sexuality and the boundaries of classism, "Dirty Dancing" is a formula film, right down to the film’s stylized and choreographed group dance at the end.
Indeed, "Dirty Dancing" mythologized “magic” is when the talking stops and the dancing begins and what you have before you is, predictably, the heightened sex appeal of its sinewy leads. Director Emile Ardolino handles the dance scenes -- particularly the love scene -- as powerful forms of communication. This moments, so rare and few in movie that relies so heavily on stock characters and worn out plots, should be applauded.
However, at the end of the day cheap titillation can only get a movie so far before one realizes that a movie that is more sex appeal than good writing (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner” gets my gag reflexes every time.)
Another confusing aspect of the film is the way that Patrick Swayze -- a charismatic actor in general -- routinely barks his affections for Jennifer Grey’s character Baby. Even at the age of thirteen I could not think of anything less romantic for a girl than being ordered about by some stormy, brute, more concerned with your footing than your feelings. Unlike Paul Newman’s cool drifter or Clark Gables survey miser in films like Long Hot Summer and It Happened One Night, Swayze’s gruffness seemed unnecessary and ungentlemanly. The character of Baby was not a headstrong heroine, but mousy ingénue. There was no battle of the sexes, no tension -- only heady teenage desire and overacted lines, such as “The reason people treat me like I’m nothin’ is because I’m nothin’.”
The lack of originality in "Dirty Dancing" perhaps relates back to what was happening in cinema during the 1980s. "Dirty Dancing" is a prime example of the kind of “high concept” formula film that was regularly feed to moviegoers in the 1980s. The 80s was the decade devoted to the blockbuster, and while "Dirty Dancing" lacked in quality, it made up for it in ticket sales. Dirty Dancing also may have resonated with generation of young people to scared to actually have sex, as the 1980s was particularly plagued with the fear of the AIDS epidemic and the Regan’s campaign to “Just Say No.” In the film "Dirty Dancing," sensuality may have seemed celebrated in a way that socially it was not. For whatever the reason, no one can deny that "Dirty Dancing" may have helped revived the dance film genre. But for me, "Dirty Dancing" will forever lack the intricacy and soul needed to be a compelling story, lift scene and all.
