A Time in my Life

Last week Kenny Ortega announced that he was going to remake Dirty Dancing. I can’t imagine anyone outside of Kenny Ortega thinks that this is a good idea. For me, the original Dirty Dancing is the summer movie. It was 1987. I was out of 6^th grade and heading into junior high.  I spent that summer with two other girls in my neighborhood prank calling boys, talking about boys, and day dreaming about junior-high boys.  And then we went to see Dirty Dancing, and suddenly junior high seemed very far away.

I don’t remember whose parent dropped us off or picked us up, I just remember sitting in that movie theatre and watching Baby and Johnny fall in love. It was no longer 1987 in Downingtown, Pennsylvania; it was 1963 in the Catskills, New York. Dirty Dancing was probably one of the first movies I saw that wasn’t just a “kids” movie. It had sex, abortion, and well, dirty dancing.

I saw Dirty Dancing two more times that summer and I have seen it countless times since. Dirty Dancing is a part of me. I admit it, I have brought watermelon to parties just so I could announce that, “I carried a watermelon” and who among us hasn’t uttered, “Nobody puts baby in the corner,” or yelled “You’re wild!” to someone driving very fast in the rain. Dirty Dancing came out in a time of my life when I was moving from childhood to adulthood and to me that movie represents, summer friendship and growing up. I don’t really care if Hollywood decides to remake the movie because it will never replace the memory I have of seeing it for the first time.  Dirty Dancing will always be the summer of 1987 to me.

What movie represents summer to you? And will you want to see the remake of Dirty Dancing?