10 Best Dirty Dancing Moments
8. Baby and Johnny Dance for the First Time
After accompanying Billy (Neal Jones), a worker at Kellerman’s, to an after hours party thrown by the resort’s staff, Baby, watermelon in hand, witnesses dirty dancing for the first time. A new world is suddenly opened to her, where people move their bodies together as one, dancing on instinct and feeling. This is all in stark contrast to the buttoned up, elitist world that Baby is used to. The dancing is intimate, with people rocking and rolling their hips against each other; it’s something Baby is both frightened of and exhilarated by. Ardolino’s direction and Jeff Jur’s cinematography is once again crucial in this moment – the way he moves his camera through the dance floor, taking in the atmosphere. He smartly uses a lot of long shots, taking care to film each dancer’s entire body.
Johnny and Penny’s dancing is looser in this scene too, but their movements are still so confident and elegant. But when Baby is pulled onto the dance floor by Johnny, it does not go well. He tries to teach her how to move her hips, but she ends up jerking her body back and forth in the most unnatural way. Although she’s embarrassed, Baby is nevertheless entranced by Johnny and his dancing ability, and this moment endears us to her and makes us root for her as she sets out on her journey.
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7. Penny Confides in Baby
One of the things that makes Dirty Dancing such a meaningful film is its ability to tackle the hard stuff in a way that feels genuine and raw. It handles Penny’s abortion subplot with compassion and it is still probably one of the most honest and frank depictions of it in major English language cinema. Although it serves most importantly as a catalyst that propels the rest of the film forward, it also serves to highlight a time in the US when women were forced to go to extreme and often dangerous lengths to access vital medical care.
Although Penny doesn’t get along with Baby in the beginning of the film – at one point, she tells her to “go back to her playpen” – she soon comes to respect her, especially after she volunteers to dance with Johnny at one of their gigs so they won’t lose any money when Penny undergoes her abortion. In the locker room before the dance, as Penny is helping Baby get ready, she tells Penny that she’s the kind of girl who sleeps around and that she only slept with Robbie (Max Cantor), a waiter at Kellerman’s, because she thought he loved her. Penny also confides in Baby that she’s scared and the two share a brief hug.
It’s wonderful to see Penny open up like this, to be vulnerable with someone when she is ordinarily closed off. This moment also illustrates how Penny’s troubles don’t define her, that she’s a person who is worthy of respect and love regardless of her social status.
6. Johnny Stands Up for Himself
Dirty Dancing is, at it’s core, a coming of age story in which two people fall in love and change each other for the better. When it comes to Johnny, Baby’s influence on him is palpable. He goes from telling Baby that he’s “nothing” to standing up for himself in front of the entire resort.
After he is fired towards the end of the film for having a relationship with Baby, he leaves the resort, but returns shortly after, just in time for the finale of Kellerman’s annual musical review. A finale that, as he stated earlier in the film, he usually performs. Johnny walks into the entertainment hall, confident and cool in his all-black ensemble and leather jacket, and takes Baby’s hand to lead her up to the stage. There, Johnny bears his soul, reciting another emotional and affecting monologue from Eleanor Bergstein’s script.
“I’m going to do my kind of dancing,” Johnny says to the room full of guests, “with a great partner, who is not only a terrific dancer, but someone who’s taught me that there are people willing to stand up for other people, no what it costs them. Somebody who’s taught me about the kind of person I want to be.” Johnny then calls Baby by her birth name, Frances. By doing so, Johnny introduces her as a new person, the person she has grown up to be. Baby has finally crossed that threshold separating childhood and adulthood. This moment also allows her parents to finally see her for who she is, through the eyes of someone like Johnny, whose life she has changed irrevocably.
