My Obsession with Dirty Dancing and its Catering to the Female Gaze.
by Chloe Buxton
The title shot of Dirty Dancing, taken from the trailer.
It's hard to explain why I love
A radio voice transitions us into the first scene. Big Girls Don't Cry begins to play and just like that, the film has started. Baby's family car comes around the corner of the highway and drives off into the distance. There's a sign saying that the Kellerman’s resort is nearby and you realise she is at the beginning of her summer adventure. It feels like nothing could be better. The film manages to capture something about a warm summer's afternoon where your hair’s blowing in the wind and the windows of the car are all down. You’re on your way to your annual summer vacation. It's a lazy, familiar afternoon. It's not necessarily anything new, but the entire summer’s laying ahead of you and anything could happen.
The opening montage of Dirty Dancing, taken from the trailer.
In many ways, this became one of my favourite films of the summer because it's a rare coming of age gem where it's told from a very subjective female lens. So we're constantly positioned with Baby throughout the film. Everybody she meets, we meet with her. There is nobody who we aren't informed about through Baby. It's constantly with her that we travel through the hotel. We make first impressions of characters. We sneak glances through doors and overhear conversations, always with Baby. Now this might seem like a rudimentary point, but as a big fan of coming of age films I have to say I struggle to think of one which is so consistently positioned with its central female character. Although Patrick Swayze is also a main character in the film, he’s certainly not the lead. It’s Baby’s thoughts and feelings who guide every scene and it's her perspective the narrative is told from. The film tries to market itself as a romance film but in reality Dirty Dancing is about a girl who goes on holiday. I fell in love with Dirty Dancing because it perfectly captured the experience of summer as a late teenager. Too old to hang out with your parents, not quite old enough to go travelling alone, having this strong desire for some excitement, some adventure, some holiday romance.
'Baby', taken from the trailer.
One of the things I really love about the film is the fact that you can really feel her disdain for things she deems to be childish. For example after an evening having dinner with her family she's asked by the hotel manager’s grandson to help him set up the evening entertainment. First of all, the hotel manager's grandson is the most cringey and awful young man ever depicted on screen. Ever. Potentially. Short, unattractive, with a huge ego, and no sense of humour, he confidently boasts that he’s the catch of the county. Anyway, he asks her to help set up the evening entertainment, and it turns out she has to be a magician's assistant. This feels like one of those sweet evening acts that when you're a child, kind of 11 or under you might think is fairly good fun to watch with your family. But as she's laying there in this box with her head turned out facing the audience her eyes and mouth are so gritted in anger you can almost feel her desperate desire to escape. Nothing's really wrong. It's just one of those painfully embarrassing situations only your parents manage to get you into. I can feel her fury at having to be inside of this box and you can just empathise with the embarrassment as all of these polite middle class onlookers clap their hands and smile and have a pleasant evening. It's so far from her sophisticated fantasies. When she's eventually released from the box, she leaves and she goes on a walk around the grounds. But it's almost as if you can feel her disdain. Her disappointment. Her desire for more. She's not a child anymore, but she's forced to partake in all of these childish acts that her parents fail to realise she's outgrown. Hence when she begins her own adventure and discovers all the staff have been Dirty Dancing and Baby becomes involved in their world it feels all the more exciting. Because you remember the stiff boredom and middle class pleasantness that she finds so insufferable. And in comparison, the world of Dirty Dancing is so much more adult and freeing and interesting to her.
Dirty Dancing, taken from the trailer.
<There are many moments in the film where Baby is clearly between both child and adult, girl and woman, innocent and experienced. Waiting for life to happen, and finally on this holiday it does. Maybe that's why this film is quintessentially for female pleasure, because it's a female fantasy first and foremost. It's what every girl hopes her family holiday will be before she leaves. She's hoping to spontaneously meet the love of her life. Who's going to be way out of her league, but for some reason gives her a second look. And for some reason also falls in love with her, all in the space of three weeks.
Fun fact, in the Netflix documentary about the making of Dirty Dancing, I learned that the screenplay was written by Eleanor Bergstein and it just so happens that her family called her baby when she was a teenager. She insists that the screenplay isn't autobiographical. But I think we can all infer that the character of Baby and her feelings and experiences in the film must come from a deeply personal place in Bergstein's memories. Maybe that's why I love the opening so much. As Baby sits in the car a voiceover reads “That was the summer of 1963. When everybody called me baby and it didn't occur to me to mind.”
Something about that opening line sounds so authentically naive, almost like an old diary entry.
A lake lift Dirty Dancing, taken from the trailer.
When watching the film with my boyfriend we both agreed that Patrick Swayze was somewhat catering to a female gaze in this film. Now, I'm not sure whose decision that would be, whether it was through the writing or the casting or what the costume designer decided to put him in. But I have to say, it does seem that men don't flock to see this film for Jennifer Grey. But women do flock to see this film for Patrick Swayze. Perhaps that tells us something about who is watching Dirty Dancing and a little about why the film was made. There's some level of female empowerment in that.
There's nothing more disappointing than watching a film and suddenly realizing you're seeing loads of shots of legs and boobs and realising that the film wasn't actually made for you. There is something so profoundly refreshing in watching something that's designed for female voyeurism. For once, I am not being forced to look at women, instead I am able to enjoy looking at men. There are many shots where Baby is just watching Patrick Swayze move across the dance floor and she stares both in awe and desire.
It's especially interesting considering it was made so long ago. I don't think when the film came out it was necessarily spoken about in a way that recognised its strong female gaze. One thing I will say is that after finishing the film, my boyfriend turned to me and went,
“You're always talking about how there aren't films for women.”
And I was like, "what do you mean?"
And he was like, “well, that was a film for women”.
And maybe that's the argument I'm trying to make in this article. I never would have considered Dirty Dancing to be a feminist coming of age masterpiece, but having watched the film so many times now I’m here to tell you that it is. If you’ve ever sat at home on a hot summer’s day and dreamt of the perfect family holiday, this film’s for you. Give those old 80s classics a chance. They’re better than you remember.
