As early as I can remember, Dirty Dancing was my favorite movie. While other little girls were watching THE LITTLE MERMAID on repeat, I wanted to go fall in love in the Catskills in the 1960s. I wanted to be Baby and I used to dance around the house to TIME OF MY LIFE and pretend that Patrick Swayze was my boyfriend. I was probably still in Preschool but that didn’t matter; I knew that that was what I wanted love to be like when I grew up. What could be more romantic than leaping into your dancer boyfriend’s arms and have him mouth the words to a love song to you as an entire auditorium danced around you?
I obviously didn’t understand many of the other things that happened in the film like illegal abortions, sleazy waiters sleeping around, or what exactly Johnny Castle did to Baby after they danced shirtless in his bedroom. Those realizations came later in life but it didn’t change my thoughts and I continue to count the movie in my favorites, and probably always will.
In my mind Dirty Dancing will always be one of the greatest love stories that has ever been told and perhaps it has ruined me a bit for real life romance. To this day, whenever I have on a nice dress, there is still a part of me that wants to be lifted off of a stage so I can run to my waiting lover’s arms as Jerry Orback realizes that he was wrong and that he really is a good man for me.
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