DIRTY DANCING

On its 10th anniversary, DIRTY DANCING has been re-released with digitally remastered sound. Set at Kellerman’s resort in the summer of 1963 in the Catskills, guest Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) goes through a sexual awakening with the help of Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), a dancer hired to keep the guests happy. Johnny keeps them smiling as he “entertains” the rich women whose husbands come up for the weekends. Sexually promiscuous and used, he feels inferior, pessimistic and dejected.

Enter Baby, an innocent teenager with an optimistic attitude who wants to change the world. As she interacts with the summer staff, Baby develops a crush on Johnny and decides to help Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes), another summer dancer. Penny needs to miss a critical dance performance to have an illegal abortion. To help her new friend, Baby lies to her father (Jerry Orbach) to get the money to pay for the abortion and substitutes for Penny by performing with Johnny. Penny’s abortion is performed by a traveling “doctor” with a dirty knife and no ether. Baby ends up telling the truth to her father, a physician, so he can help Penny recover. However, Baby isn’t so forthcoming to her father when it comes to her relationship with Johnny, who is from the wrong side of the tracks. Instead, she sneaks out to meet Johnny for sexual trysts.

As Baby’s vacation draws to an end, Johnny begins to decline sexual advances from married guests. Regrettably, Johnny is accused of stealing wallets from guests. His only alibi is that he spent the night with Baby, which he refuses to admit in order to protect her reputation. Baby is left with the dilemma of whether to admit she was with Johnny and shock her parents and the hotel owner, or stay quiet. In the meantime, the owner’s son, a boring, unattractive snipe played by Lonny Price, is attracted to the uninterested Baby, while Robbie Gould, a womanizing waiter, has Baby’s sister on his list of potential sexual acquisitions.

The re-release of DIRTY DANCING does nothing to bring new life to this poorly written formula story that lacks strong direction. The movie perpetuates stereotypes between the dull, rich guests and the libertine, rebellious staff, whose favorite pastime is “dirty dancing,” complete with body rubbing, pelvic thrusting and groping. The dancing, along with the sexual activity among the guests and staff, is disturbing; however, the movie isn’t without moral merit. The botched abortion, with its potential to destroy Penny’s ability to have future children, provides a strong message about premarital sex. Penny believed her sexual partner, Robbie, loved her. However, Robbie is nowhere to be found once she discovered her pregnancy. Also, self-sacrifice is strongly portrayed in the relationship between Baby and Penny and the friendship between Johnny and Penny. Another positive portrayal is Baby’s close, trusting relationship with her father, which is temporarily disrupted when he catches her in a lie.

Despite some poignant ethical lessons, it is distressing to see that gifted dancers, such as Swayze and Rhodes, are reduced to dirty dancing in order for us to be able to see their talents displayed on the big screen. There talents are wasted in a movie with mixed moral messages. Re-releases are becoming more and more popular today, but this is one movie which didn’t need to see the silver screen again.