Dirty Dancing set a bad precedent

I was checking out some of my favorite websites this evening, and it seems as though lots of people are talking about Dirty Dancing. This is probably in honor of Patrick Swayze, but one article I found online really got me thinking. It is over at Your Tango, and the title says it all - "How Dirty Dancing Ruined My Love Life."

Now, Dirty Dancing came out in 1987, and I'm not really sure if this movie was really appropriate for a seven-year-old, but somehow I was able to watch it. .T. was not allowed in the house because it was somehow sacreligious, but Dirty DAncing...sure. I do remember that this movie long with Top Gun were probably the first sex scenes I ever witnessed.

I don't think Dirty Dancing ruined my love life because I was never really interested in finding a guy that could dance. That just wasn't too high on the "dream guy list." I do think it gave me expectations about family vacations. My family took a vacation almost every year, and nothing like what happened to Baby ever happened on one of our holidays away. Maybe because we didn't spend an entire summer at a resort or even went to places that had planned activities like a wig exhibit or bunny hop lessons. It was nice to dream though isn't it? I mean how cool would it have been to go on vacation, meet a hottie and then get to brag about it to all your friends back home?

So as we drove to the beach or the mountains, I would dream about how I could be walking down the beach or the trail and just run into a guy and it would be love at first sight. We'd pal around while our families were doing their thing, and then maybe at the end of the summer, we'd exchange addresses and become pen pals. That's really the way my mind worked...pen pals with maybe a phone call. I was so innocent.

Now Baby lost her virginity to her summer fling, which was not a very smart move. Obviously, Johnny had gotten around with the guests and who knows what that guy carried arund. And he didn't seem to have any problems helping someone take care of an accidental pregnancy. Was Johnny really that great of a guy? Granted he stood up to her dad, but was it really necessary? What dad wanted their little girl hanging out with the male whore? I mean he was a gigolo. He admitted to taking money from the slutty woman with the poker-playing husband.

So along with the good girl falling for the bad guy and setting up high expectations for summer vacations, Dirty Dancing just might not be the best movie for the impressionable mind of a seven-year-old. I did always wonder if Johnny kept in touch with Baby after the summer was over.