Take Another Look: How Dirty Dancing Took the Conversation around Safe Abortion Out of the Corner
It was the 80s romance that became a guilty pleasure for millions – searing that iconic dance move into our minds forever. But it was also groundbreaking in the way it portrayed abortion in a radical, compassionate light.
good.film
2 years ago
Share
Step into our DeLorean and whizz back in time with us to the multiplexes of 1987 – a vastly different cinematic universe (one that even - gasp - had no Marvel!). The only Batman movie the world had seen was a campy 60s version. Glenn Close had just terrified adulterous men (and rabbits) everywhere in Fatal Attraction, the Ghostbusters were reloading their proton packs between sequels, and Axel Foley was back on the beat. America’s (future) sweetheart, Julia Roberts, was still 3 years away from that iconic jewellery-box-snapped-shut moment – but fortunately, America’s interim sweetheart was about to jump off their screens. 27-year-old Jennifer Grey was catapulted to instant fame, alongside a 35-year-old (pre-Ghost) Patrick Swayze, in what would become one of the biggest films of the 1980s: Dirty Dancing.
Pre-release, it’s fair to say hopes were not high. Unimpressed by test screenings, the film’s distributors planned to give it a weekend in theatres, then release it straight to home video. Both stars were too old for their roles (Swayze wore a girdle to look as lithe and youthful as possible) and neither were considered huge draws. In another universe, the movie nearly starred Billy Zane and Sarah Jessica Parker; their dance moves at the audition didn’t cut it. We’re gonna go out on a limb and predict that version probably wouldn’t have become the 80s icon that millions know and love today (sorry SJP).
At its core, it’s – wistful sigh – a winsome ‘forbidden love’ story; a teenage crush movie (Grey’s character, Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman, is 19 years old). But beneath the pink tulle dresses and black singlets (and yes, girdles) lay a far deeper message movie, with a risky abortion subplot that gave the story innate heft - and an unexpected longevity. After all, we’re talking about it today.
The early steps could almost be Disney: Baby (the princess) goes to a boring resort with her family. She meets, squabbles and flirts with the resort dance instructor, Johnny. Baby’s father forbids her from seeing him. So far, so G-rated - but then the dance moves begin to quicken and complicate.
Johnny’s dance partner Penny falls pregnant to a boy who refuses to help her terminate. Baby lies to her father to get money for Penny to pay for the illegal procedure. She steps into Penny’s shoes to dance for the season’s prize money with Johnny. The abortion, therefore, is the only reason Baby even spends time with Johnny and falls in love – and when it goes wrong, it’s the reason Baby admits her dishonesty to her doctor father, so he can act to save Penny’s life.
And so, a movie wrapped in a glossy sheen of sexy moves, lakeside swan dives and classic 60s tunes contains a near-tragic story with weight that’s universal - and timely. As Mia Brett wrote for Mic: “Yes, we love the dancing, and the chemistry between Grey and Swayze is electric, but ultimately, Dirty Dancing is a deeply political movie about abortion and feminist identity.”
In 1987, the year the movie came out, abortion had been legal for around 14 years: long enough for the right to be entrenched within the public consciousness, perhaps, but not long enough for it to be a topic that was comfortably chucked into studio rom-coms by Hollywood executives (Agnès Varda’s One Sings, the Other Doesn’t tackled it in 1977 - probably about as far from the LA studio system as one could imagine). To say the topic was touchy was putting it mildly. As Quartz put it: “The accepting way in which abortion is treated in Dirty Dancing is a big risk for producers, even by today’s standards”. And it was particularly true for a romance movie set in 1963, a full decade before Roe vs. Wade, making Penny’s abortion illegal; hence the need for the shady backroom procedure that turned the gears of the plot.
The studio had a right to be nervous: when it came time to attract corporate sponsors to help fund Dirty Dancing’s promotion and distribution, they landed a winner in Proctor & Gamble, makers of the famous Clearasil skin products. It was (almost) a win-win partnership, with the ointment-maker convinced they’d found the perfect vehicle to reach their teen target audience. Their one demand? Penny’s abortion had to go.
Keen for the corporate cash, execs put heavy pressure on the filmmakers, but they dug their heels in, explaining (correctly) that the abortion was crucial to the plot. Clearasil duly backed out – despite the fact that the word ‘abortion’ or a direct mention of it is never explicitly stated in the film. One could argue that the film concealed the procedure too effectively: later exit surveys proved that nearly 40 percent of the audience didn’t realize abortion was the topic of the subplot.
Interviewed in 2022 about her steadfast refusal to cut the abortion plot line, writer Eleanor Bergstein said: “I had little hope that anyone would see the movie and even less hope that it would influence anyone – but just in case, I put in the things that were important to me. Just in case.” She went on to say: “If you make a movie in colour with pretty people and music and sensual dancing and a beautiful, blond young girl with a face like a delicate princess having no choices and screaming in a hallway under a dirty knife – maybe you’ll change somebody’s mind about what they assumed before.”
Curiously, while 1987 reviews were mixed – with some praising the passion and party-pop energy, while others lambasted its one-dimensionality – few seemed too bothered to delve into the abortion subplot, or even mention it as a point of interest. Roger Ebert skirted it with the words “a waiter impregnates Swayze's partner, and when there's an emergency, Baby asks her father to help out…” while The New York Daily News danced around the event even more effectively than the movie’s stars, writing: “When Johnny's dance instructor gets sick, Baby is pressed into service as Johnny's partner…”
But look back at the film today, and it makes a surprising number of lists for films treating abortion with balance, maturity and a lack of moralizing. Quartz summarised it thus: “Dirty Dancing was pretty ahead of its time. Not only was it one of the earlier films to approach the topic of abortion for a mainstream audience, it did so in an almost modern, matter-of-fact manner: no beleaguered weighing of options, no blow-out fights with fathers, just a women’s right to choose.” Writing for The Reveal, Keith Phipps admits that “Now, a glossy film about love and dancing that also depicts the consequences of laws against abortion looks more exceptional, and subversive, than ever, even if it wasn’t necessarily treated that way at the time. In 1987 it felt like a depiction of how far we’d come since 1963. In 2022, it now looks like a warning about how progress can be ripped away.”
If you ask us, that warning is now sounding like a 5-alarm siren. With the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe V. Wade, Dirty Dancing has found itself swept back into a national debate. Thinkpieces emerged with titles such as "Don't Forget That Dirty Dancing Has a Powerful Pro-Choice Message" and "Beyond the Romance, 'Dirty Dancing' Is a Cautionary Tale About Abortion Inaccessibility." Jennifer Grey herself has made her feelings clear on the shock and outrage felt by countless women; women who, at the hands of a slim majority of Supreme Court justices, have been potentially sent to the pre-Roe 60s era captured by her most famous role. Asked her thoughts on live television, Grey replied, "I'm horrified that this is really on the table again in 2022. I mean, talk about being in the corner. If you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. Just don't have one. Don't take away the choice. It's insane. The idea that we would be rolling back… it's made me feel physically ill today."
Polling indicates Grey is far from alone. According to recent surveys, the majority of Americans feel the decision is ‘a step backward for America’, that it will ‘make women’s lives worse’, and that the door is now ajar for the Court to potentially overturn same-sex marriage and – in a chilling outcome we can only describe as Handmaid’s Tail-esque – access to birth control. Amidst a flurry of international condemnation from world leaders and Hollywood celebrities alike, former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said: “Today’s Supreme Court opinion will live in infamy as a step backward for women's rights.” In a typically blunt assessment, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “People will die because of this decision.” And in a lengthy social media statement, former First Lady Michelle Obama used the word “heartbroken” no less than five times.
Effectively, Dirty Dancing could be remade today and the illegality, secrecy and medical incompetence of the botched abortion plot could all remain as true-to-life as the version set six decades ago. It’s nothing less than a gasp-inducing and shameful reversal of progress.
Dirty Dancing is embedded in the consciousness of Gen Xers the world over. Swayze and Grey’s irrefutably steamy chemistry helped the movie make back its $6 million budget 35 times over – a stunning coup for what had been written off as merely a cheesy B-movie in some corners. And if we’ve learned anything, it’s that nobody puts Dirty Dancing in a corner.
At an early screening, one executive advised investors to “burn the negative and collect the insurance”. Happily, they didn’t, and the film went on to become the top rental video of 1988, pick up an Oscar and Grammy for Best Song, and sell 32 million copies of the iconic soundtrack. But push the money, the awards and the red-blooded dance moves aside and it's the message of the film’s powerful subplot that lingers as a cautionary tale. ‘Baby’ Houseman may have had The Time of Her Life in the Catskills of 1963, but Penny certainly can’t say the same; her friend describes the man who performed her procedure as having only "a dirty knife and a folding table".
Tragically, this exact ordeal has been experienced by countless women in the decades since. After the latest from the US Supreme Court, the heartbreaking reality – to borrow a word from Michelle Obama – is that many thousands more American women face being thrust into the same needless situation in the future. As Dirty Dancing’s prescient writer Eleanor Bergstein fittingly encapsulates:
“When I made the movie about 1963, I put in the illegal abortion and everyone said, ‘Why? [We have] Roe v. Wade―what are you doing this for?’
“I said, ‘Well, I don’t know that we will always have Roe v. Wade.’”
Did Dirty Dancing get you thinking about reproductive rights? Or did another movie cover abortion in a progressive way? If you have a favourite that you think deserves a deeper look, visit good.film and tell the world.
