A Pop Culture Memoir Starring the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack
It's the summer of 1963. Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman is headed to a Catskills resort with her family and finds the underworld of afterhours staff parties. People are dancing. The dancing is dirty. It’s dirty dancing. The dirtiest dancer of all is Johnny, the resort dance instructor. His best friend and dance partner Penny got knocked up by awful Robbie the waiter. Penny can get a back alley abortion, but someone will need to fill in for their upcoming performance at a nearby hotel. Baby volunteers to learn the steps and perform in Penny’s place. Forced proximity ensues and a Baby/Johnny love connection happens. Poor Penny is suffering after her botched abortion and Baby gets her doctor dad to help. Afterwards he's not mad, he’s disappointed, and that’s worse I think. Everyone is sad. Baby’s sister offers to do her hair. An elderly couple turn out to be grifters. The big final night talent show happens and Johnny convinces everyone he loves Baby with his dirty dancing. Everyone learns that the dancing wasn’t that dirty after all. All conflicts are resolved. Robbie gets fired. Everyone grinds on each other like 7th graders and they party like they don’t know the President will be assassinated in 3 months. The End.
THIS IS THE SOUNDTRACK TO A MOVIE THAT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE A HIT, FILLED WITH PERIOD APPROPRIATE SONGS THAT PROBABLY DIDN’T COST A LOT OF MONEY AND NEW SONGS BY “USED TO BE’S” “WANNABE’S” AND “SHOULDA BEENS” BUCKLE UP FRIENDS, THERE IS A LOT OF SEXY SAXAPHONE.
“Keira, why are you writing a whole book about the Dirty Dancing soundtrack?”
In this essay, I will explain why the 1987 film Dirty Dancing is important.
I got nothing. I’m not really interested in convincing anyone why Dirty Dancing is worth their time. We are busy people during the downfall of civilization. You think I’m going to ask you to sit down for 2 hours and watch a 1987 classic romantic musical comedy? I don’t need you to love this film to read this book. I don’t need you to love this soundtrack to read this book. It would certainly help, but if we turn up where I think we are going–we won’t need superfan status to enjoy ourselves. In all my graduate school writing, this is the part where I map out exactly where we are headed. Like, an outline? Or whatever? But I didn’t use an outline to write this thing! I’m not even sure what this book is about yet! We are booking without a map. Together! I’m so excited for us.
I invite you to view enjoyment as a multi-tiered experience. There’s the “one and done”--I enjoyed that, it was nice, I’m good with never seeing it again. There’s the “Oh I like this”--mark this one down as a potential repeat. This is special–it says, “I want to see this with a different group of people to have the experience once more, but with them.” Let’s not discount the “Oh my, this wrecked me” film--usually a singular event because I can’t purposely walk myself into that kind of emotion any more. After watching Children of Men, I basically needed assistance leaving the theater. I will never see it again. But you should totally see it. It was very good! Newer on the cultural scene is the “hate watch.” But I have news for you... (whispers) you actually like those and what’s more, you hate the parts of yourself that like it. Take that to your therapist and see what pans out.
I put Dirty Dancing in an almost unexplainable category of enjoyment. It’s like a glass of water. A blanket at bedtime. Gloves in your coat pockets. It’s nothing and everything. It’s background noise, it’s the greatest film of all time. It’s nostalgia so ingrained I’m not even sure it happened to me. It’s a film that can be started at any point and you can leave it on. Yes, starting it from the beginning would be ideal, but not necessary for enjoyment. I struggle to tell you if it’s good or bad as a film. If I’m feeling like an asshole and I often do, I’d tell you it transcends those simple descriptors. It’s not so much a good film as it is a good feeling.
I can’t tell you why this is the film of films or why this was the only thing I could write a book about. There is a good chance you have a different move like this in your life–one I haven’t seen or don’t even care about. This assumes people I don’t already know are actually reading this. (If that’s the case–hi!) It’s great that you don’t like Dirty Dancing. Keep not liking it. You are wonderful just the way you are.
What I hope to convince you of, or at least want you to enter into with an open heart and mind–is that this is not just a film but a cultural touchstone for a group of people. So the quality of such a touchstone is hardly relevant when we talk about how it made us all feel. Most importantly and especially in the 1980s–the easiest way to take that feeling with us after the movie was over was to listen to the soundtrack. We could put tapes in our car dashboards or buy compact discs inside to use in our parents' new stereos. We could pretend we were the romantic leads or amazing dancers. We could partake in the timeless ritual of girlhood and community–making up a dance with all of your friends. It's so cool and so embarrassing and so like totally and so cringe. It’s all of us on stage in the church basement and on the dancefloor at my cousin’s wedding. It’s convincing a group of groomsmen I’ve never met to do the lift with me and everyone instantly working together to make this happen. Sometimes, for a few minutes, I feel the glory of being inside the circle instead of outside of it. The time of my life.
Track Four: Hungry Eyes
Eric Carmen was done with LA. The 70s had been fun. His band The Raspberries had made some power pop hits including “Go All the Way” and there was the solo breakout hit “All By Myself.” It had been a very respectable run, but it was time to pack it up and live a quieter life in Ohio. He could still write songs, but he wouldn’t have to sing them, which was no problem because he never liked singing that much anyway.
So when the soundtrack’s producer Jimmy Ienner called him up to sing a song written by someone else for a soundtrack, Eric Carmen replied with a very unenthusiastic “ok.” The song was too slow and he wanted to change the tempo, but was told no because the dance scene from the movie had already been filmed with the demo.
Then there was the creepy title, “Hungry Eyes”. Maybe the songwriters wrote it as a nod to film theorist Laura Mulvey and her concept of the “male gaze” because the song plays during the most male gaze-y part of a movie otherwise made for women. Out of nowhere Penny and Baby are wearing fishnets and sexy mirror dancing while Johnny watches, like the wolf watching two Little Red Riding Hoods attempting the mambo. Shots of Swayze hands on bare skin. Sneakers are swapped for silver heels and Baby applies lipstick before entering the rehearsal room, attempting to turn herself into the object of desire.
OR maybe in the studio at 3am, after the urgent request for a sexy song to play during a sexy movie montage, one guy turned to another guy and said…
