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Themes in Dirty Dancing

Five major conflicts arise during the plot of the movie: (1). First, is the low simmering conflict between resort hotel owner Max Kellerman and his paid staff, both the wait staff and the entertainment dancers. Early in the film Max is seen and heard dressing down these employees in private and in even in public. He counsels his wait staff to take the daughters of guests out to see the lake, and the dance instructors to take them out onto the dance floor, but to keep their hands off. He signals head dancer Johnny Castle and his former Rockette dance partner Penny with a cut across the throat, not to show off as a couple during the evening dances, but to give the guests dancing lessons. (2). Next there is the conflict between the moneyed guests, who dancer Johnny Castle refers to as “they are rich and they are mean,” when talking to Baby, and the staff, who last week were eating ju-ju beans to survive, and need this job to survive. Even dashing pre-med waiter Robbie Gould says he is “Spending the summer hauling toasted bagels to earn just enough money to buy a car, an Alpha Romeo.” (3). Third, there is the rising existential conflict for resorts such as Kellerman’s, as times are changing. Max is heard to say to his band leader, Tito Suarez, “It’s not the changes this time Tito. It all just seems to be slipping away. Kids no longer want come up here with their family and do the foxtrot. No, now they want to go to Europe, and see 22 countries in three days.” Part of this conflict is the typical parent-child tension within the Houseman family, who are the central characters among the guests. (4). The fourth set of conflicts are the inevitable love triangles that thrust love-hungry philandering guests together with economically disadvantaged dance instructor and wait staff, into troubling romantic trysts, that jeopardize staff. (5). Finally, there is the age old conflict between the vulnerable young woman and the dashing, gallant handsome young man, who abandons her after finding out she is with child.

Some form of tragedy befalls the vulnerable characters in the five conflicts, and they are unable to save themselves. The staff has to work for the tough boss Max, because they need the money, but Max needs them as well to entertain his guests on what he calls, “his mountain.” As the story unfolds, Max shows his up-and-coming hotel manager, his grandson Neil, how to fire an employee, his head dance instructor, who a romantically jealous guest has (wrongly) accused of stealing her husbands’ wallet.

Moneyed guests show off their perfume, furs and jewels, but they often do not have another person close in their lives. So they temporarily attract vulnerable young staff with diamonds, in short term trysts.

Max does not know what to do to change the business model of his resort hotel, to continue making it appealing as a family resort, not just retreat for the well-to-do. In one of the final scenes, as all guests are getting up on the dance floor to “dirty dance,” as band leader Tito Suarez easily guides his band to play the new dirty dancing music, Max asks Tito, “Do you have sheet music for this?” Tito, an ever changing hipster, just smiles and waves his conductor’s wand as if it were a Merlin’s wand. In another ending scene, Tito is seen disco dancing with Penny the Rockette.

In the fourth conflict, the tragic Johnny Castle is rescued by his new dance partner and true love, as he says “…Ms. Francis Houseman, who is the kind of person I want to become.” By falling in love with Baby, he is able to escape the hold of the diamond laden Ms Vivian Pressman, philandering wife of wealthy gamble Mo Pressman.

The tragic and vulnerable former Rockette, Ms. Penny Johnson, dumped by waiter “Robby the Creep,” is forced into an unsafe abortion to end her pregnancy, from which she suffers a deadly internal infection, is saved by the gentle and capable Doctor Houseman, Baby’s father. The good doctor treats the victim of the unsafe abortion procedure, without hesitation, but he too tragically believes that his daughters older lover, Johnny Castle is responsible for the pregnancy, and not Robby the Yale medical school student, who the doctor is happily, if blindly so, supporting with a personal letter of recommendation.

So, who saves who? In the end, the fired Johnny Castle saves Max Kellerman’s resort by introducing the new entertainment of dirty dancing, which proves to be very popular among his guests. Baby saves Johnny Castle by believing in him. “You are everything,” she tells him. Doctor Houseman saves Penny by his medical acumen, and moreover, restores her dignity, that someone cares for her and about her for who she is as a person, not just an attractive woman and a superb dancer. Baby saves the father-daughter relationship with her father by moving it from a parent-child relationship, toward an adult to adult relationship by courageously expressing her true critique of her own actions and those of her father. Baby saves Johnny in the eyes of her father, who in one of the final scenes reconciles with Johnny saying, “When I am wrong, I say that I am wrong.” Johnny has looked up to Dr. Houseman ever since he saved his long time friend Penny Johnson from the deadly infection, telling Baby that “I could never do anything like that.”

Dirty Dancing has been a well-loved movie by fans since it was first shown in 1987. Now it airs regularly on various cable movie channels. Is one of the reasons for its steady popularity, the unlikely end of the story heroes, who save the very same people with whom they were in conflict during much of the story?

Writer Eleanor Bergstein may not have intended to introduce the element of irony in her screen play of Dirty Dancing, or her preceding semi-autobiographical story, It’s My Turn, but irony certainly played a role in the outcome of the lives in many of the characters of the movie Dirty Dancing.