Dirty Dancing (film)
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Dirty Dancing is a 1987 romance film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein, the film features Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Cynthia Rhodes, and Jerry Orbach. The story details the moment of time that a teenaged girl crosses over into womanhood both physically and emotionally, through a relationship with a dance instructor during a family summer vacation. Around a third of the movie involves dancing scenes choreographed by Kenny Ortega (later famous for High School Musical), and the finale has been described as "the most goosebump-inducing dance scene in movie history".[1][2]
Originally a low-budget film by a new studio and with no major stars (at the time), Dirty Dancing became a massive box office hit. As of 2007, it has earned $300 million worldwide. It was the first film to sell over a million copies on home video, and the Dirty Dancing soundtrack generated two multi-platinum albums and multiple singles, including "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", which won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song, and a Grammy Award for best duet. The film spawned a 2004 sequel, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, as well as a stage version which has had sellout performances in Australia, Europe, and North America, with plans to open on Broadway.
Plot summary
In the summer of 1963, 17-year-old New Yorker Frances "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is vacationing with her affluent Jewish family at Kellerman's, a resort in the Catskill Mountains. Baby is planning to attend Mount Holyoke College to study economics and then to enter the Peace Corps. She was named after Frances Perkins, the first woman in the U.S. Cabinet. Baby's father, Jake (Jerry Orbach), is the personal physician of the resort owner Max Kellerman (Jack Weston).
Baby develops a crush on the resort's dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), part of the working-class entertainment staff. When Baby is invited to one of their parties, she observes for the first time the "dirty dancing" that the staff enjoys. Later, Baby discovers that Johnny's dance partner Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) is distraught over becoming pregnant by Robbie Gould (Max Cantor), the waiter whom Baby's sister Lisa is dating. When Baby learns that Robbie plans to do nothing about the pregnancy, she secures the money from her father to pay for Penny's illegal abortion. In her efforts to help, Baby also becomes Penny's fill-in for a performance at the Sheldrake, a nearby resort where Johnny and Penny perform annually.
A scene from the dancing finale, as Baby overcomes her fears, and trusts both in Johnny, and in herself, to allow him to lift her high in the air. This has been described as "the most goosebump-inducing dance scene in movie history".[1][2]As Baby becomes Johnny's pupil in dance, tempers flare and a romance begins to develop. Their performance at the Sheldrake goes reasonably well, though Baby is too nervous to accomplish the dance's climactic lift. When they return to Kellerman's, they learn that Penny's backstreet abortion was botched, leaving Penny in agonizing pain. Baby brings her father, who is a doctor, to help, but he assumes that the pregnancy was caused by Johnny, and forbids Baby to have anything to do with him or his friends. Baby, however, defies her father and continues the clandestine affair. The relationship is revealed after Johnny is accused of stealing a wallet from one of the resort guests; to save him from being fired, Baby confesses that he could not have been responsible as she was with him in his cabin that night. Johnny is eventually cleared of the theft charge, but is still fired for having a relationship with a guest. However, Baby's selfless act inspires Johnny to realize that "there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them."[3]
In the film's climactic scene, Johnny, even though he has been fired, returns to the resort to perform the final dance of the season with Baby. He utters the film's most famous line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," as he pulls her up from her parents' table. Dr. Houseman learns that the true culprit in Penny's pregnancy was Robbie, not Johnny, and he apologizes (Robbie having accidentally confessed to his deed earlier in the scene, while talking to Dr. Houseman). The film ends with a major dance sequence, as Baby overcomes her fears to allow Johnny to lift her high into the air, and the room is transformed into a nightclub where everyone, staff and patrons, dances together.
Plot analysis
Dirty Dancing has been described as a coming-of-age tale showing the passage from adolescence to adulthood, in a classic hero's journey format similar to Homer's Odyssey. The hero, Baby, is an innocent who receives a call to adventure from a gatekeeper – one of the camp staff asking her in to the party – who invites her to cross a bridge (symbolically significant as it links different realms) and Baby passes into an unfamiliar world (the resort's staff and their more sensual dancing). Baby then proceeds through tests and trials (dancing lessons, taking the lead in dealing with Penny's abortion, preparing for and completing the performance at the Sheldrake, standing up for Johnny) to achieve personal growth, "knowledge acquired through personal experience". She is rewarded for her achievements, by sexual union with Johnny. At the end of the film she undergoes the supreme ordeal (dancing in front of her parents and the audience including the climactic lift), which she conquers, and is rewarded by being raised, both literally into the air and figuratively into divinity, demonstrating that the hero has achieved a new higher state of being, and has been permanently changed by the journey.[4]
