I’m sorry Dirty Dancing I was not familiar with your game!

This movie is actually great. I thought it was gonna be dumb cheesy fun if not a mess. In actuality this film is cohesive and has something to say every step of the way. 

Love how her name is either representative of something she is not anymore or something she is not yet rather than who she is now. Girl or old lady but no-one sees the woman. Baby’s name is all about perception - a motif that is explored in many ways throughout this flick. 

The discussion of class and how difficult it is to live paycheck to paycheck with absolutely no safety net. The film takes it a step further and opens the discussion to the cruelty of a safety net taking away their support as soon as you displease them. Using class to separate our protagonists and create that rivalry needed for enemies to lovers was a perfect choice. His apprehension with her is based not on who she is but on what she represents. And when she stops representing that he begins to see who she truly is and falls in love. 

An abortion storyline is pretty brazen but especially for the time period it came out in where it was legal but looked down upon. Not to mention this is pre Roe v Wade in the film universe. I feel like even now there aren’t that many stories broaching the subject. 

Yes this movie is titled Dirty Dancing, but still I have to point out how excellently the dancing is used as a film mechanism. The dancing builds the tension between two characters who are diametrically opposed and then it connects them on the deepest emotional level. The needle drops in this movie are to die for. 

By the time we got to the iconic line “Nobody puts baby in a corner” I genuinely forgot it was coming! That line perfectly captures this movie. It is 80s cheesy goodness, mixed with romance warmth, but it is also grounded in humanity and goodness.