![]() And in Dirty Dancing, Baby outgrows her fixation on her dad by bonding with a new man - the hunky dance instructor at her Catskills resort, Johnny. But you let me down too.”Īccording to Jung, to overcome the Electra complex, the heterosexual female must transfer her love to another, more suitable love object. I’m not sure who you are.”īut while it’s hard for her to take her dad’s criticism, this separation from him is crucial to her growing up.īaby: “I’m so sorry, Daddy. Jake Houseman: “You’re not the person I thought you were, Baby. ![]() One of her big moments of crisis in the film comes when, for the first time, her father disapproves of her. ![]() In key moments when she confronts a problem, her first instinct is to go to her dad for help. In the first dance class, when Penny says, “When I say stop you’re gonna find the man of your dreams!” Baby is about to move toward her dad -and looks disappointed when Penny cuts in. Coined by psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the Electra complex posits that a girl’s initial love object is her father.īaby: “And I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad.”īaby shows obvious girlish affection for her dad, gushing about him and striving to impress him. In the film’s opening scene, Baby also identifies herself as a girl with an Electra complex, the female equivalent of an Oedipus complex. Her voiceover in the opening scene frames her as an innocent living in an innocent time.īaby: “That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came…” Here’s our take on Dirty Dancing’s timeless insights into the young female experience.įrances Houseman’s childlike state at the beginning of Dirty Dancing is allegorized through her nickname: Baby. Jennifer Gray: “My character really becomes a woman and becomes aware of her sensuality.” As Baby takes ownership of her desires and physicality, she achieves confidence, maturity, and purpose. It’s a coming-of-age expressed as coming into one’s own body. Frances’ progression from Baby to woman is a symbolic telling of the heterosexual young woman’s awakening into her femininity and sexuality. What makes Dirty Dancing so irresistible? As much as we keep coming back to Emile Ardolino’s 1987 film for the iconic romance, Patrick Swayze, and, of course, the dancing, there’s a deeper meaning in protagonist Baby’s character arc that explains why this story has struck a chord for so many viewers ever since its release. Here’s our Take on Dirty Dancing’s timeless insights into the young female experience. Frances’ progression from “Baby” to woman is a symbolic awakening into her femininity and sexuality-a coming-of-age expressed as coming into one’s own body. The room was absolutely silent - everyone was just staring at us.What makes Dirty Dancing so irresistible? As much as we keep coming back to Emile Ardolino’s 1987 film for the iconic romance, Patrick Swayze, and of course, the dancing, there’s a deeper meaning in Frances “Baby” Houseman’s character arc that explains why this story has struck a chord for so many viewers ever since its release. I lifted, she posed beautifully, and I lowered her slowly to the ground, with our eyes locked on each other. “For the second audition, Jennifer Grey and I went in to dance for writer Eleanor Bergstein, choreographer Kenny Ortega, and Emile Ardolino,” he wrote. In his memoir, The Time of My Life, which was published posthumously the year of his death, he wrote about the audition process he and Grey underwent for Dirty Dancing. Swayze died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 57. Directed by Emile Ardolino, the film has earned a cult following and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1988 for “(I've Had) The Time of My Life”, which is famously used during Swayze and Grey’s final dance number. “It hurts my ribs,” Grey replies, eliciting laughs from the rest of the team.Ī voice can be heard narrating about Grey and Swayze: “You couldn’t have picked two people better to tell the story of Dirty Dancing in terms of their chemistry together.”ĭirty Dancing was released in August 1987 in the US and in October of that year in the UK. Swayze and Grey can be seen practising lifts, with Swayze instructing Grey to lift her chest so the position doesn’t hurt her ribs. Lionsgate, the film’s distributor, shared a version of the video on YouTube last year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |