Dirty Dancing
“I was convinced that lurking right around the corner was a hot dance instructor from the wrong side of the tracks …”Dirty Dancing is all about buildup. Before they actually wind up in bed, Baby (Jennifer Grey) and Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) spend weeks of the summer of 1963 engaged in good girl/bad boy flirtation at a Catskills summer resort — bumping and grinding at dances in the appealingly trashy staff quarters, spending long days and nights in the dance studio, taking drives to practice balance on a bridge and lifts in the water, clothes all see-through and slipping off … Whew! Late one night, after being reprimanded by her father, Baby runs to Johnny for comfort. Foreplay conversation is all about being scared. Of what? “Most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my life the way I feel when I’m with you,” says Baby. And then: “Dance with me?” (We all know what she really means.) “Here?” asks Johnny. “Here,” says Baby, about to become Woman. Then beneath the red light in Swayze’s bungalow, they do a lot more than dance, and all to the tune of “Don’t You Feel Like Crying?” I did, with glee! An impressionable, nerdy 12-year-old girl, I was convinced that lurking right around the corner was a hot dance instructor from the wrong side of the tracks who would teach me how to do the merengue and initiate me into the art of love! Result? Profound dating disappointment later in life.
This article appears in August 11 • 2000.