And so I saw it just now.
Catskill Summer Resort
It’s the summer of ’63. During her seasonal job as a dance instructor at the fictitious Kellerman’s resort, working-class girl Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) discovers she’s pregnant, compliments of her wait-staff boyfriend Robbie Gould (Max Kantor).
Yale University-bound Robbie unceremoniously dumps Penny the moment he finds out, and immediately moves his predatory sights to new resort guest Lisa Houseman (Jane Brucker), the somewhat small-minded (and embarrassingly untalented in singing and dancing) older daughter of wealthy V.I.P. guest, Dr. Jake Houseman (Jerry Orbach).
Dr. Houseman’s wallflower-dreamer younger daughter, Baby (Jennifer Grey) has instantaneous heroine worship of dancer Penny’s athletic body, dance-floor charisma, and dazzling dance skills. Not to mention Penny’s dance-staff partner: black-motorcycle-jacket and Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses-wearing Johnny Castle (Swayze).
When the very innocent Baby finds out about Penny’ pregnancy, she, very much wanting to ingratiate herself to the cool kids, people-pleases and tries to help organize an illicit abortion. Mainly, she feels it’s just the right thing to do. Baby knows Robbie because he’s her family’s ascribed waiter and thinks he’s a good guy, but upon discovering he’s not, tries to get the money for Penny from her dad.
Current Relevancy
While set in the early ‘60s, “Dirty Dancing” includes a few songs from 1987, which ended up situating the hybrid storytelling firmly in the ’80s. Which makes it a time-traveling vehicle with which to explore a pre-Roe v. Wade world, but which was released in a solidly post-Roe America. On its 35th anniversary, it’s newly relevant in 2022, as America confronts a potential future with a drastically different set of choices and legalities.
As a character, Baby Houseman embodies a lot of the liberal, progressive, activist spirit that shaped the late ‘60s and early ’70s, particularly Civil Rights and anti-war movements. And I’m pretty sure I heard the extremely entitled, two-hotel-owning, son of the boss, Neil Kellerman (Lonny Price), who chases Baby around, brag to her that he’d be driving down South with two buddies to help with a voter registration drive. Which is a heavy-handed reference to the real-life story of the three kids that got killed doing just that, described in 1988s “Mississippi Burning.”
But Baby, still starry-eyed and idealistic—perhaps, in her case due to her sheltered economic privilege—has a rude awakening to the realities of the impact of class in American life: She encounters the resort management’s snooty attitude towards the blue-collar “help.”
Baby’s innocence regarding the fact that there are not always men out there who take responsibility for their actions, may have been shattered, but without Penny’s abortion, there is no “Dirty Dancing”; it’s the sole motivation that allows Baby and Johnny’s romance to bloom.
Dishonorable Baby-Daddy
As aborted-baby-daddy Robbie says, “Some people count and some don’t.” Robbie’s off to Yale in the fall, but at Kellerman’s, he’s resort help, same as Penny. But he feels fully justified and entitled in kicking her to the curb when she becomes inconvenient. As Penny heartbreakingly explains to Baby, “I just want you to know that I don’t sleep around, whatever Robbie might have told you. And I thought that he loved me. I thought it was something special.”
Honorable Baby’s Daddy
Johnny Castle might be featured as the romantic hero of “Dirty Dancing,” but Dr. Houseman is the actual hero of the story, and his behavior is something in the movie that remains ahead of its time. When he finds out Penny is in need of his help—he simply helps her; passing no judgment on her at all. The people he’s angry at are Johnny (who he believed was responsible for Penny’s pregnancy) as well as Baby, for lying to him about where the $250 ultimately went. She requested the money but refused to say what it was for. He forbade Baby from seeing Johnny anymore because he felt Johnny shirked responsibility and Baby enabled this.
That’s an honorable man. And while it’s safe to say Dr. Houseman anchors the core of upstanding morality at the heart of this tale, and Johnny Castle shines almost as brightly as the wrongly accused, who refuses to refute the accusation and stoically forebears in the face of the doctor’s scorn—it’s Baby’s pure heart and innocent demeanor (not to mention her electrifying dancing) that remain in my mind as the most lasting image and emotional reverberation of “Dirty Dancing.”
In Conclusion
The recent Supreme Court developments in the United States send us back to the dark side of “Dirty Dancing.” As the dust settles over the Roe v. Wade outcome, America appears to be split down the middle. On the one hand, the liberal view is that women should have the right to choose, and that quality health care should always be available to support those choices. In fact, abortion is considered a right because sex is considered a right, and teen sex is considered a healthy choice for the human race.And on the other is the conservative, traditional view: The sexual-revolution was the outcome of a deliberate, sustained attack by Soviet communism to rot the moral foundations of all of America’s institutions from the inside out. The conservative view is basically that abortion is murder and if premarital sex weren’t an issue, there’d be no need for abortions.
But just like the now iconic “Dirty Dancing” line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner”—it’s unlikely humanity will realistically figure out a way to put that particular genii back in that particular bottle any time soon. It’s a completely different world now; it’s no longer a time when women have to go into some filthy back room. Irrespective of the Supreme Court ruling, we no longer live in the America where a pregnant woman has no right to choose, or who might risk her life for basic health care. The decision says that states decide on abortion, so a woman could conceivably go to another state.
But there’s another option, and what would have been even more interesting would have been a scene where Penny actually having the child was debated.
Re-watch “Dirty Dancing,” think long and hard about it, and be inspired by the good intentions of all those caring for Penny’s predicament.
I, for one, am really glad I waited 35 years to see “Dirty Dancing” in its native tongue. A dubbed version wouldn’t have done it justice by a long shot.
