Dirty Dancing: Why do girls love it so?

From the very frame and the very first beat of The Ronnettes ‘Be My Baby’ I know that once again I am hooked. Childhood nostalgia fills my entire body and I start to feel like a little girl again. Even just sitting here thinking of this beat has evoked emotions that can only be associated with this movie. What is it about this film that brings all this out in not just me but millions and millions of women around the world? I loved many other films growing up but Dirty Dancing trumps them all. Dirty Dancing was the cherry on top of all other childhood films. I watched it so many times my mother could not stand it any more and taped over my VCR recorded copy. Driving everyone in my household insane with singing the songs and repeating the lines and my obsessive need to want to be Baby Houseman. Even now deep down I want to be Baby. Jonny is still my number one guy and I would definitely tell Daddy about it!

Dirty Dancing hit our screens in 1987, when a fresh faced Jennifer Grey and an upcoming star Patrick Swayze quickly rose to fame in this low budget movie. The blockbuster success took everyone by surprise and the film and the stars danced their way into the hearts of women and girls all around the world. The coming of age story of Baby Houseman set in the summer of 1963 hits a cord with women everywhere. There’s something about a film that stages the loss of teenage innocence, the following of one’s heart no matter what the consequence and finally about becoming a womanthat sets pulses racing and a deep and youthful longing within all of us. It has spurned off sequels, a recent project to re-make and a massive international Theatre production. Dirty Dancing is still a success.

I want to break down the possible reasons for why we love the film so much and why it will be forever in our hearts.

Is it the Man?

Hell yes! How do I begin to describe Patrick Swayze as Mr Jonny Castle. With his muscles to die for, moves that are so sexy it drives me wild and a smile so sweet he sets the bar for any man in my life. Perfectly capturing the working class dancer with limited roads to success, who needs a girl ... sorry I correct myself ...a woman to lead him to his full dancing potential. The love and need that they have for each other is not to sentimental or lovie-dovie. There’s no promise of marriage, of babies, of happily ever after. There’s just the summer love of 1963 that will forever live in Baby’s mind as the summer she got lucky! Johnny’s caring and sentimental adoration for Penny, his childhood friend, shows his compassionate nurturing side and that he is not a complete bad boy after all.

Johnny is the ultimate guy that it wrong for us but we can’t help ourselves but to have to have him, and boy I wish I could have had him.

Is it because Baby lives the dream?

Yes she does! She lives the ultimate dream fantasy. A 17 year old virgin with big career aspirations and world peace on her mind, who is suddenly thrust into a world of dirty dance moves and a sexual longing that can only be put out with action! Baby gets to be taught by Johnny, held by Johnny, dance with Johnny and ultimately have sex and fall in love with Johnny. The bedroom scene is hot and without realising it, as I watched this as a child, I have become obsessed with men’s bums, for when Baby hand brushes Johnny’s bum before they have sex still drives me mad! This would be the sexiest thing I get to see from the age of 6 till about 11 or 12 and my idea of what foreplay was.

The appeal of Baby comes from the fact she is ... well ... normal. She’s a girl about to embark on university, who hasn’t quite fallen in love yet and who is the apple of her father’s eye. She has a certain innocent quality about her that lived within all of us once. Her fuzzy hair and child like clothes captivates her adolescent naivety perfectly. And at the end of the film Baby is dressed more like a woman, looks more like a woman and is treated like a woman as she takes the stage for the final dance. A true coming of age story.

How about Daddy Houseman?

Baby tells us at the start of the film “ I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my Dad”. Dr /Daddy Houseman is a great man. He is a save your life kind of doctor. Saving Kellerman years ago, saving Penny from her illegal abortive pain and ensuring she can still have babies, he’s political, happily married and happy to trust his daughter with a large sum of money without demanding a reason for it. Yes he makes mistakes, but no-one is perfect. He mistakes Johnny to be the father of Penny’s illegitimate and aborted child, but nobody corrects him otherwise or puts him straight. Yes he stops talking to Baby once he finds out she has been having sex with Johnny (who he still thinks has gotten Penny into trouble and moved on to his daughter). But he is in tears as he sits by the water alone, when he knows he’s wrong he says he’s wrong and he loves his daughter when he sees her dancing. Adoration shines across his face as he tells her she looked “beautiful out there”. Daddy Houseman is a real man and is the father figure I long to have.

Is it the Dancing?

From ballroom style maranga to hip thrusting, sexual moves that the crew at Kellermans perform on the main dance floor, the dance moves are outstanding. Well choreographed each dance carefully moves with the correct beat, with the correct moves and with the correct people. Leaving us girls wanting to learn all things Salsa and all things dirty. The very first moment we see Johnny Castle take the dance floor with Penny, we see his sex appeal, his moves, his show persona. His talents are obviously way beyond the realms of Kellermans, but he works there to earn his hard earned cash and we all know show business is a tough gig.

Johnny teaches Baby to dance and the ultimate montage sequence of his lessons are spell binding. Seeing Baby progress from amateur to semi-professional is great. If she can do it we can do it! And when Baby finally performs at the Sheldrake she is very nearly there. She does not perform finale lift, but she dances well enough that they get away with the replacing Penny plan.

I am trying to lead on to the last dance slowly, but there is nothing I can do to put it off anymore. The last dance is the ultimate finale to an already great movie. It never fails to send shivers down my spine, has caused people to mimic it at weddings, parties and clubs everywhere, filled every fantasy I had as a child and even now when I am sad can pull me from my mood and make me a hyper 6 year old again. The last dance is the last dance to end all dances. Nothing will be as great or as exciting for me as this dance. When Johnny calls “Miss Francis Houseman” onto the stage my knees goes weak. The sounds of the record player starts to fill the room with the song we all love ‘Time of My Life’ and Johnny takes the stage with his leading woman. Swoon. I, like every woman I know, know every move they dance off by heart. Every step, every touch, every life and every look. When Johnny jumps from the stage our minds go insane, he triple spins in the air and then starts to dance his way to his now very excitable entourage of dancers. Modernising the stuffy ballroom dance step with a move he has been creating he dances his way back to Baby and ready for the ... wait for it for we now know she’s also ready for it ... the LIFT. Oh the lift! When Baby gets lifted into the air all of our hopes and dreams have been fulfilled and we know it’s all going to be okay.

Or is it just the music? (Info from Wikipedia)

Winning multi awards:

Academy Award 1987 - Best Original Song

Golden Globe Awards, 1988 - Best Original Song

Grammy Awards, 1988 - Best Pop Performance by a Duo

With two multi platinum albums, spreading covering music decades the 60s and the 80s, Patrick Swayze himself singing an original song makes the soundtrack a sing-a-long dream.

Songs from the album which appeared on the charts included: (info from Wikipedia)

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life", performed byBill MedleyandJennifer Warnes, composed byFranke Previte, John DeNicola, and Donald Markowitz – this song rose to #1 on the pop charts.^[39]

"She's Like the Wind", performed by lead actor Patrick Swayze, composed by Swayze and Stacy Widelitz; this song peaked at #3 in 1988.

"Hungry Eyes", performed byEric Carmen, composed byFranke Previte

and John deNicola; this song peaked at #4 in 1988.

Yes", performed byMerry Clayton, composed by Neal Cavanaugh, Terry Fryer and Tom Graf; this song peaked #45 in 1988.

Original music written for the film mixed in with 60’s classics. Every time a Dirty Dancing song comes on I catch myself singing and having to fight the urge to get up and dance!

You cannot deny the power this film has over women. They’ve tried to sequel it and even starting to re-make it.

So this is why girls love Dirty Dancing and why it will stay in our hearts and musically in our bones forever.

Patrick Swayze will forever live in my heart as the Johnny Castle and every time I watch this film I remember him fondly.

There is nothing more us girls like then a toe tapping, karaoke influencing, line quoting delight and Dirty Dancing embraces all of these things and more.