Katy Brand - I Carried a Watermelon - Dirty Dancing and Me

Deep down I was waiting for Johnny Castle. An older man, perhaps. Or at least someone who knew what to do. In the film, he is meant to be 25 to Baby’s 17, and Swayze himself was 34 when it was made (Grey was 27). This keeps us just on the right side of ‘slightly pervy’, but the age gap, both real and imagined, has been remarked upon before. It is really the sincerity and innocence of the performances that keeps us from any true discomfort.

Some have said maybe Johnny does this every year, and Baby is simply his latest victim, but I’m not having that. Because there is nothing untoward or unequal about the sex Baby and Johnny have. In fact, Swayze himself understood this, saying in a TV profile of his life and career that the film shows the loss of Baby’s innocence, but the regaining of Johnny’s. A more beautiful and insightful comment on their respective journeys, I could not compose.

And when that astonishing sex scene finally happens, crucially, it is Baby who initiates it. She seduces Johnny. She comes to his cabin, expressly disobeying her father, who has literally just told her she is to have nothing more to do with him. She’s performed her duties at the Sheldrake, so there is no need for her to come at all. Baby may hope to use apologising to Johnny for her father’s behaviour as a cover for her late-night visit, but she knows perfectly well what she’s really after, and suggests they dance together, one last time. As they move to the cracked soul of ‘Cry to Me’ by Solomon Burke, she runs her hands over his naked torso and grips hold of his buttock like a woman who knows exactly what she wants. It is one of the sexiest scenes of all time. Watching them blend together, in and out of bed, is enough to give you palpitations. And the best thing about it all is that Baby clearly loves it – she is not ashamed or guilty, she just wants more. Here is a teenage girl losing her virginity with no misery, shame or tears. She loves sex. It can be done!

When you are brought up with the constant reinforcement that your virginity is both a hindrance and a prize, that the losing of it will be traumatic no matter how you do it, can you conceive of how astonishing this film is? Let’s stand back and give it a moment. Let’s applaud it. Teenage girls can love sex and not be ‘little minxes’ or ‘sluts’. Who knew? I want more of this.

I wrote a play in 2018 called 3Women , with an 18-year-old girl in it, and I wanted the same for her. Writing her dialogue, when she’s talking about how much she loves sex, was such a thrill. I thought of Baby throughout. When she shouts that immortal line to Johnny as they argue about their fate – ‘Most of all, I’m scared of leaving this room and never feeling again, my whole life, the way I feel when I’m with you’ – I think I knew, even as a young girl, that she meant sex – there’s unfinished business here, and Baby could surely sense it was building to something wonderful. It’s a cry of lust, as much as it is one of love.

Johnny clearly has no idea of the sheer power he possesses here. He blinks back at her, bewildered. But he has had this effect on women before, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though it’s sort of sweet that he hasn’t realised. And it can get him in trouble – one woman who has experienced his skills, Vivian, is even prepared to tell an absolute stonking lie because she fears she will never get near it again.

Ah yes, Vivian. Vivian Pressman, brilliantly and subtly played by Miranda Garrison (although on first viewing I was convinced it was British actress Lesley Joseph, of Birds of a Feather fame …), brings us to a different kind of sex represented in Dirty Dancing . In fact, there’s a lot of shagging in Dirty Dancing . It drives the plot as much as the dancing does. And a lot of general sexiness – everyone looks pretty up for it all the time. Even Baby’s parents, Jake and Marge Houseman, have a naughty twinkle in their eyes, to be frank.

The air of melancholy and loneliness, and faded glamour Vivian brings can be lost in the frenzy of the first few viewings, but it’s there and it’s important. When I first watched it, I was too overwhelmed by it all to really take her, and her storyline, in. But later in life I have grown quite fascinated by it.

It’s Max Kellerman’s introduction to Vivian early in the film that sets the tone. He watches her gracefully dancing with Johnny, a wry and sympathetic smile on his face as he explains to the Housemans that she is a ‘bungalow bunny’ – women who spend all week alone at Kellerman’s while their wealthy husbands work, arriving at the weekend only to ignore them further, choosing to play cards instead of dancing with their wives. It is clear that Vivian and Johnny have some form of quiet arrangement, and that she is one of the women ‘stuffing diamonds in his pockets’ that he refers to later in his speech to Baby about his experience of being sexually exploited in the resort. There are no sniggers, or jibes about older women. He doesn’t suggest that he is lowering himself, or is repulsed by her. There is an implied competition with Baby of course, which Baby wins, and yes, her youth is part of it, but also there is a sense that Vivian represents a jaded, toxic scene that we wish Johnny was not involved with, and Baby is his route out.

My only criticism of this storyline is that, as I have got older, I have wished to learn more about Vivian. There’s so clearly a real story there, and she would have things to say about life, men, and probably a whole lot else. Probably more than Marge Houseman, who doesn’t seem to have a lot going on, and even less to contribute, save for her final bark at her husband, ‘Sit down, Jake’, as Baby and Johnny take to the stage in front of everyone.

It took me a while to realise what was going on in one of the final scenes, where Vivian’s husband Mo offers Johnny some cash in hand for ‘extra dance lessons’ for his wife, because he will be busy playing cards all night. It took me even longer to understand that Johnny’s decision to reject the offer of cash (and therefore reject Vivian herself) from Mo Pressman, in front of her, motivates her to report him to his boss for stealing the purses and wallets that have been going missing around the resort. This then leads to Baby having to expose their affair by providing his alibi, while accusing the old couple, the Schumachers (who are found to be the real thieves). ‘I know he didn’t take them,’ she says falteringly, her eyes flicking briefly to her shocked father, ‘I know he was in his room all night. And the reason I know … is because I was with him.’ Wow – what a moment! Your heart could beat right out of your chest. She has just told everyone she is shagging the arse off her dancing instructor, right there, over breakfast.

There’s a lot to learn from this film when you are 11 years old. The mysterious and complicated world of adults was slowly coming into focus for me, but a lot still went over my head. There are layers I missed the first time I watched Dirty Dancing that would later reveal themselves with repeat viewings (even to this day, Vivian Pressman is now a pretty vivid character for me, rather than a slightly tragic side-show). I remember around this period (the early 1990s) hearing the phrase, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’, for example, and gaining some insight into its meaning because of Vivian’s actions. To make herself feel better after Johnny’s rejection, she goes straight to nasty Robbie Gould, the waiter, and is discovered on top of him by Lisa, Baby’s sister, who arrives ready to let him pop her cherry. And all the while, a stone’s throw away in another cabin, Johnny and Baby are having another world-beating shag. It’s a busy night.