YMMV / Dirty Dancing

• And You Thought It Would Fail: The film was hated by executives, producers, and test audiences. The studio expected a flop and even made preparations to screen it for a single weekend before pulling the movie out of theatres and releasing it on home video. Producer Aaron Russo further suggested to "burn the negative, and collect the insurance" after watching it. What they got was a box office break both domestically and abroad, the first position in video rentals the next year, and even an Oscar win for best song. The reason for this discrepancy was that the movie was made with teenagers in mind, and the studio was right when they expected it to underperform among the teenage crowd. What they didn't see coming was for the film to be a massive hit among adults, especially among women.
• Awesome Music: "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Grammy for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals. The first soundtrack released is one of the best-selling albums of all time (32 million), spent 18 weeks at number one on the Billboard charts, and spawned a second soundtrack release of other songs from the film. The latter album, More Dirty Dancing, was headlined by "Do You Love Me?" by the Contours, which was re-issued as a single and hit #11 on the Billboard charts 25 years after its original release (and wouldn't be the first time an old song would find new life off a Swayze film).
• Estrogen Brigade:
  • Thanks to PATRICK FREAKING SWAYZE!!!!!
  • Colt Pratt's abs in the 2017 remake are almost a character on their own.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Nowadays, Havana Nights is primarily remembered for featuring a young Diego Luna as one of the leads.
• Les Yay:
  • A bit between Baby and Penny as they dance together half dressed and sweaty.
  • During the last dance number, two stuffy-looking elderly ladies look at one another, shrug, and begin dancing together, to Kellerman's bewilderment. Fan speculation is that these women are long-time "companions" who were inspired to finally come out in public.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Nobody puts Baby in a corner!"
  • On the flip side, "I carried a watermelon" is frequently up there in "worst lines ever" lists, and often mocked on the internet. This is even lampshaded by Baby herself In-Universe: "I carried a watermelon?"
• Narm: A huge chunk regarding the 2017 TV remake. In particular, Baby's parents gasping in astonishment, "Did you know she could do that?" at Baby's unremarkable and stiff dance moves.
• Narm Charm: Some of the earnestness of Jennifer Grey's lines and deliveries for fans of the movie. Most notably "I'm 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!"
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Jake is Briscoe and Lumière.
  • Marge is Emily.
  • Wayne Knight is the resort's social director.
  • In the prequel, Katey's father is John Slattery.
• Sequelitis: Most agree that Havana Nights is a rather average film with virtually no relation to the first other than a vaguely similar storyline and Patrick Swayze's cameo.
• Signature Line: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Much to Swayze's chagrin.
• Signature Scene: The ending dance scene, in which Baby and Johnny dance to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", especially the part where Baby gets lifted by Johnny.
• Signature Song: The Oscar-and-Grammy-winning "(I've Had) The Time of My Life", followed in second by "Hungry Eyes".
• The Woobie: Penny. She gets pregnant by the sleazy, womanizing Robbie, and then nearly dies from a brutal, back-alley abortion, and is even slut-shamed for it.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Simply put, the ABC remake made many changes that didn't sit well with the original's fans, but the Framing Device makes an especially questionable addition. The ending dashes viewers' hopes of Baby and Johnny staying together by showing that, by 1975, Baby married another man, had a child, and wrote an autobiographical romance novel, which Johnny helped turn into a Broadway musical.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The remake's ending could fall under this for viewers who not only find the changed ending disappointing but also reminiscent of La La Land, which premiered only a few months earlier than when ABC first aired their Dirty Dancing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One of the more interesting elements of the remake is Lisa's budding romance with Marco, son of Tito the bandleader, in a time when interracial relationships were forbidden (and marriage illegal). Likewise, the examinations of class and race from the original film are missing from the remake, despite giving Penny a Race Lift. Except New York is one of the few states that never enacted an anti-miscegenation law.
• Values Resonance:
  • The movie showed one of the earliest nuanced portrayals of abortion. Penny gets knocked up by a rich jerk but is supported in her decision to get one by her friends. She's not portrayed as evil, naïve, or misguided, just a young woman who knows what she needs. When her life is in danger thanks to the back-alley abortion and Jake has to get involved to save her, he doesn't report her and reassures her that she'll still be able to have children, and as far as we can see never condemns or blames her for her choice, reserving his anger for Johnny (whom he thought was the father) and Robbie (who actually was the father and not only didn't take responsibility but made disparaging comments about Penny).
  • Baby's growing female sexuality is something that still resonates with every modern woman.
  • How the movie showcases the bad side of classism, with most of the rich acting like entitled jerks. This film shows that being rich and going to a fancy school doesn't mean that they're necessarily a good person. Even Jake, Baby's father, is depicted as a good, decent man, but even he considers all the working-class younger staff as troublemakers that he doesn't want near his daughters.

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