The Time of My Life: Dirty Dancing

Pop This! podcaster Warner (Rise Up and Sing!) presents an animated ode to the 1987 film Dirty Dancing. Using her personal connection with the movie as a springboard to explore its themes and appeal, Warner recounts how watching Dirty Dancing on VHS the year of its release, when she was nine, spurred her sexual awakening and “helped shape my burgeoning feminism.” It’s the film’s feminist sensibility that Warner celebrates the most, lauding the movie’s refusal “to moralize sex as bad” in its depiction of protagonist Baby Houseman’s lust for her dance partner Johnny Castle. According to Warner, the subplot revolving around Baby’s friend Penny’s need for an abortion is similarly forward-thinking, portraying the procedure as “necessary, life-saving healthcare.” Elsewhere, Warner details how Eleanor Bergstein drew on her memories of learning to mambo on vacation in the Catskills as a teenager while writing the screenplay, and offers a song-by-song breakdown of the soundtrack (she calls “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes “flawless” and finds Tom Johnston’s “Where Are You Tonight?” “unexceptional and inoffensive”). Though Warner faults Dirty Dancing for lacking Black and Hispanic characters while heavily featuring Black and Latin music and dance, her tone is mostly laudatory, electrified by the enthusiasm and admiration of a true fan. It’s a fun commentary on an enduring pop culture touchstone. (Apr.)