10 Best Dirty Dancing Moments
5. Baby and Johnny Have Sex for the First Time
When Baby’s father treats Penny after her traumatic abortion, he regards Johnny with disgust, wrongly believing that he was the one who got her pregnant. Baby sees how this hurts Johnny and, when she visits him at his bungalow later that night, she tells him that she’s sorry for what her father did. Johnny, of course, thinks her father is generally right about him – that he’s nothing and doesn’t deserve to be treated with respect. Baby pushes back against this and Johnny is stunned by how sure of herself she is, telling her that it doesn’t seem like she’s scared of anything.
But Baby is scared – she’s afraid of the kind of person she’s becoming, of growing up and realizing the world isn’t the way she thought it was. “Most of all, I am scared of walking out of this room and never feeling. the rest of my whole life, the way I feel when I’m with you,” she tells him, tearfully.
That declaration is as good as telling Johnny she loves him, something they both realize immediately. The air in the room changes. The record player begins to play “Cry To Me” by Solomon Burke. Baby then asks Johnny to dance with her – not because they have to, or for an audience, but because they want to. This dance is different than what they’ve done before. It’s sexually charged and much more vulnerable. The choreography by Kenny Ortega, future director of Hocus Pocus and High School Musical, is exceptional, as it is throughout the whole film because it serves a narrative purpose. The lighting in this scene is also of note, both Johnny and Baby cast in the burning glow of a hot summer’s night. It is worth noticing the sensual way in which Ardolino frames his actors as they dance, and his direction is especially moving in this scene. The details he captures, like the way Johnny grips the underside of Baby’s thigh as he lifts her up, or how he lovingly cradles her shirt in his hands before tossing it aside, ensure every last drop of sexual tension is extracted from each movement.
In this moment, Johnny and Baby are the most comfortable with each other they ever have been and it shows in the way they interact physically, how they seem to anticipate each other’s movements and trust each other to be so close. Most importantly, Baby leads this dance, at least at first, signalling her growth as both a dancer and a woman.
4. Johnny’s Confession
In coming of age stories, a character’s sexual awakening is crucial to the narrative. Baby finds hers in Johnny, and although it’s clear he’s more experienced than her, Johnny also finds an awakening in Baby. After they’ve slept together a few times, Baby asks him how many women he’s been with. Surprisingly, Johnny is embarrassed by this question. He later confesses that the wealthy guests of the resort, often much older, married women with far more social capital than him, would usually proposition him for sex all summer. He enjoys this at first, believing that they are doing it because they care about him. Baby misunderstands this, thinking that he was using these women. “It wasn’t like that, Baby,” Johnny tells her. “They were using me.”
This is an important moment for Johnny as a character and the scene is acted with such vulnerability from Patrick Swayze. Through his relationship with Baby, he now knows what it actually feels like to be with someone who cares about him. This moment also plays into Dirty Dancing’s themes of class and privilege, and it’s to the filmmakers’ credit that they explore these themes through both men and women. Anyone can be the victim of sexual coercion and the film shows that from several points of view. Having it happen to Johnny feels almost radical, even by today’s standards, when it’s difficult to find a mainstream romance film that chooses to engage with something so heavy and does so with such care.
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3. Mouthing the Lyrics
After Baby and Johnny successfully complete their dance and delightful chaos has broken out around them, they stand amidst it triumphant. Johnny then mouths the lyrics of “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” to Baby. It’s a sweet moment that encapsulates their journey together, and Baby looks up at him with love and adoration.
The lyric, “I swear/it’s the truth/and I owe it all to you,” is especially meaningful, and it’s as if Johnny is telling her exactly how it feels without having to actually say anything at all. It’s an acknowledgement of how they’ve changed each other – of how much they owe each other.
What makes this moment particularly affecting is how it almost feels like saying goodbye. There is never any promise that Baby and Johnny will stay together past this summer, past this moment. The ending of Dirty Dancing feels bittersweet in general, and this scene captures that energy.
