Product: Dirty Dancing (1987)
Rating: 5.0
Dirty Tribal Reunification
"Dirty Dancing" is a deceptive film in many ways. The title alone implies a kind of steamy sexuality that belies what is otherwise an old fashioned story about romance and decency. But "Dirty Dancing" is more than just a love story. It is also a classic tale of tribal evolution.Patrick Swayze plays Johnnie a dance instructor at a wealthy retreat in the Catskills during the early sixties. Jennifer Gray plays "Baby" a wealthy young vacationer who falls in love with Johnnie. The film is fraught with the usual class differences (Johnnie's set is poor, Baby's is rich) and tragic misunderstandings (Baby's father thinks Johnnie is immoral when if fact he is decent and honest.). This produces that kind of tension that makes the love affair between Johnnie and Baby a little more interesting than--say-- if they sat by the creek all day exchanging vows of passion.The real plot of "Dirty Dancing" is that a tribe of people has failed to evolve with the changing times. In order to evolve, the tribe requires a hero to invigorate it with new concepts and a new vision. The tribe in this case is the vacationers (the parents and their young adult children) at the retreat in the Catskills. The hero, of course, is Johnnie.In the final scene of the movie, an older vacationer tells one of the servants that the retreat has lost much of its vigor and that the children prefer vacations in Europe to spending the summer with their parents in the Catskills (Gee, what a surprise!). He delivers his monologue as the children perform an obsolete, dull, and out-of-tune musical skit before the assembled vacationers. At that moment, Johnnie who has hitherto been banished from the tribe makes a surprise entrance. He snatches Baby from the protective grip of her family, brings her to the stage and invigorates the tepid assembly with an amazing dance routine. As the crowd woops and cheers to Johnnie and Baby's antics, the old man who previously lamented the tribe's lack of enthusiasm realizes that Johnny's style and performance is the answer. Johnnie speaks to the younger generation with a new idea and a new style. In doing so, he motivates them to remain with the tribe (that is to take boring vacations with their parents instead of going to Venice for the summer). In claiming his woman and reinstating himself in the tribe he also initiates a vital fertility rite. Love, justice, and rock and role pull the Catskill vacationers out of the doldrums and help push them into a new era (of yet more dull vacations in the Catskills).