at first that his cousin Billy has smuggled in a ‘guest daughter’ – as we have already learnt, due to excellent exposition, proprietor Max Kellerman does not approve of extra-curricular staff-guest fraternising, at least not for the dancers, so Johnny is understandably concerned that this intruder may get them all in trouble.
Baby is already slightly turned on by the deeply filthy dance displays going on all around her. As she follows Billy through the steaming, writhing mass, her skin flushes and her lips part. She looks a bit ‘glowy’, shall we say. But that’s nothing compared with what’s in store for her sharp sexual trajectory. Because Johnny Castle casts off his initial wariness and gets the devil in him for a moment. He invites Baby to dance. And so, it begins …
Using dance as a proxy for sex isn’t new. In fact, using anything as a proxy for sex is fairly standard across all art forms – cutting to fountains gushing, or the tide rushing in at the crucial moment, is now so clichéd that it’s a joke in itself. Even Jane Austen was at it in Pride and Prejudice, when she used Elizabeth Bennet’s carefree lone muddy walks, her flushed cheeks and bright eyes shining from the fresh air, to convey a kind of vigorous drive and lust for life that does the job for Mr Darcy. But here in Dirty Dancing, the metaphorical shield is Durex-thin – it is in fact quite explicit. Basically, dancing = sex with your jeans on.
The scene continues, with Baby joining the throng at Johnny’s invitation. As the more experienced dancer, he calms Baby down, gets her to feel the rhythm, and she stiffly lurches and thrusts with all the style and grace of Theresa May at a hip hop night, and as you watch, you feel the cringe go deep on her behalf.
But he doesn’t laugh at her, or belittle her. As Otis Redding belts out ‘Love Man’, he pulls her to him, tells her to look in his eyes, to relax her shoulders, and – what do you know? – within minutes they have locked groins and she has become like a cooked noodle in his arms. The song ends, and he leaves her, but she can barely stand up. She appears to be melting from the vagina outwards. The message is this: a good dance will prepare you for good sex. You need not fear losing your virginity with a man who dances like this. It won’t even hurt, for god’s sake – you’ll be so ready for it, you’ll have excess natural lubricant to bottle and sell.
I don’t need to be the latest person to describe the awkwardness of watching sex scenes with your parents – there are a million comedy routines covering it, and we all know what that’s like in any case from sphincter-tightening first-hand experience. And so yes, on my first viewing there was all the usual ‘eyes-straight-ahead-don’t-swallow-don’t breathe’ stuff going on, which meant my enjoyment was a bit … subdued.
Part of the sex appeal is how imperfect some of them look at times, by modern film standards. It’s not all painted and pretty; it’s sweaty and lusty, with mascara running down their cheeks with the sheer heat of it all. I remember being absolutely thrilled with it – not necessarily in an explicitly erotic way, but it certainly gave me a feeling of warm excitement. It all looked so physical and immediate – you can feel the chemistry coming off the screen. Sex is natural and easy. Bodies are fun and sensual. So, feel good about yourself. And I did, after watching it.
So, while dancing is obviously the main focus of the film, and the dancers set the tone in a smoky, oily kind of way, it’s sex that really underpins the whole thing. In her review of Dirty Dancing when it first came out in 1987, the eminent American film critic Pauline Kael wrote in the New Yorker, ‘dancing is a transparent metaphor for main character Baby’s sexual initiation … this is a girl’s coming of age fantasy: through dancing she ascends to spiritual and sensual perfection.’
Ascending to spiritual and sensual perfection sounds pretty good to me now as a 40-year-old woman, never mind as a teenager, but as a young girl approaching puberty the thought of sex terrified and fascinated me in equal measure. I had a habit of trying to get boys’ attention, but as soon as they showed any interest, I would feel sick and back off hard. Of course, I was still too young to actually do it, or really want to do it, but trying out your powers early on the opposite sex, with varying degrees of success, seems to be a rite of passage for many girls.
My attempts were clumsy to say the least. I was not in any way coquettish or even especially nice, and thought being sarcastic was highly seductive. If I fancied someone a bit, I would relentlessly take the piss until there could be no doubt that I considered them scum of the earth. It was counterproductive, but kept me and my delicate feelings protected in public. ‘You’ll cut yourself on that tongue one day,’ a teacher said to me after overhearing a conversation I was having with one poor victim.
The idea of flirting, or being soft in any way, made me feel ill. I can’t explain why, but it was a physical sensation – a visceral recoil. Thankfully, I got over it, so perhaps it was just nerves, but for a long time my relationships were always verbally combative – I saw it as a sign of affection, or rather, the kind of affection I was willing to express at the time. The idea that you should be nice to boys if you want them to like you seemed perfectly logical to me, it was just when it came to anything romantic that I went a bit strange. I had lots of friends who were boys, and they had always seemed fairly interchangeable with the girls. I didn’t wear dresses much, or skirts. I liked blue jeans, blue t-shirts and scruffy trainers. I mostly had my hair short, and could barely be bothered to brush it. If I dressed up at all, it was leggings and a large jumper. Before I watched Dirty Dancing that first time, I don’t think I really understood intimacy between couples, and the kind of ‘sex appeal’ that was usually shown in films felt like it came from another planet. I couldn’t relate at all.
But now here was a girl called Baby, who wore jeans and white plimsolls, and denim shorts, and loose-fitting t-shirts, who was slightly awkward and bad-tempered with this man, Johnny, and yet he seemed to like it. Here was a girl like me, wearing clothes like mine (only better), having her first sexual relationship with a man who clearly knew his way around. She didn’t wear make-up, she didn’t have a push-up bra, she didn’t stick her bum out, or pretend to be weak in his presence. She didn’t use any tricks. She was wholly and completely herself, authentic in all respects, even as she changed her entire world view in the space of three weeks. And, as a result, she had the shag of her life. In fact, read ‘Time of My Life’ as ‘Shag of My Life’ and you get quite an accurate sense of the journey of the film – perhaps that was Eleanor Bergstein’s euphemistic intention all along.
I believe this formed the basis for how I approached the notion of sex appeal as I entered my teens for real. I knew I wasn’t pretty in the sense of ‘pretty-pretty’ – I knew who those girls were and what you were supposed to look like to be one of them, but I didn’t really try to be like them. I still don’t most of the time. I have learnt through my professional work that if you want to look properly good, or as good as you can possibly look, you need a minimum of two hours with a professional hair and make-up artist, seriously restrictive undergarments (or ‘shapewear’ as it is coyly known) and a four-inch heel or higher. I’d rather be comfortable. I’d rather look slightly shit, smile for the picture, resolve never ever to look at it, and then enjoy the rest of the evening. I even applied this to my own wedding, which is why we didn’t have a professional photographer. I don’t regret it – I had the best time. I wore a blue dress because I always manage to spill my food, I partook eagerly of the hog roast and pavlova, and then danced all night.
Penny – played by eighties pin-up Cynthia Rhodes – Johnny’s dance partner, drips old-school glamour and always looks astonishing. Tiny Jennifer Grey looks positively dumpy next to her sometimes, but it doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t matter to Baby, and it certainly doesn’t matter to Johnny. Late in the film, Baby’s more groomed older sister Lisa offers to do her hair, but then stops herself with the line, ‘No, you’re pretty in your own way.’
‘Pretty in your own way’ became my lifeline. My mantra. There is one brief scene in Dirty Dancing where Baby tries to change herself or her appearance for
