Dirty Dancing is the feminist manifesto we all need

Why do I love the film Dirty Dancing? Would it be too much to say it’s like the wind through my tree?

Yes, maybe, but it wouldn’t be far off. It has everything – daughters and fathers, sisters, neglected wives, fear of how a pregnancy will affect your career, low-life scum and rich w*nk*rs, and how to handle them all.

It’s like an instruction manual for girls – well, middle-class girls anyway. Girls like me who sometimes have a bit of a urge to get out there and do something a bit crazy.

Nice girls who suddenly want to carry a watermelon and get dirty with the ‘wrong’ sort of man.

It’s why I’ve written a book about my love for it; it’s part memoir and another part homage to the greatest film of all time. The film is a feminist manifesto and it’s certainly played a role in the way I live my life – something that the book explores.

I’m so happy that Dirty Dancing is now widely getting the more serious recognition it deserves – with it being among the 10 most watched films on Netflix last month and with screenings lined up for the anniversary of its release next week. It was dismissed for years as an enjoyable but largely insignificant piece of entertaining fluff – a commercial hit, yes, but nothing more.

When in fact it is an important rite-of-passage story for girls.

The female lead, Baby, is about as active in the story as it is possible to be. She makes it all happen.

Every last moment is down to her, from the funding of an illegal abortion to the offer to fill in and learn the dance. To the extraordinary first seduction, and then the exoneration of Johnny as a thief.

I was worried when I started looking at the film in detail, it would not stand up to scrutiny, or that it would disappear through my fingers into nothing.

Instead, there was more packed in there than I had even imagined. It works as entertainment, yes, of course but the political messages are as fresh and pertinent now as ever.

The lessons are still there for any girl who wishes to heed them too. I’d make it required viewing for teenage boys and girls – it should be taught in schools.

The syllabus would be things like: How to stand up for yourself. How to help others without judgement as well as how not to be a passenger in your own life.

That’s not to mention other key things we can take from it like: What consensual sex looks like, you should take risks and live in the moment and a ‘yes’ is almost always better than a ‘no’ when an opportunity to learn something new is presented.

And finally, don’t let anyone put you in a corner. You are the hero of your own story.

All of the above, I learned from Dirty Dancing.

These lessons are present in other films, books, TV shows and plays of course but not usually in one place.

It’s an addictive story, with a satisfying and yet open end. We get to write the next bit, with our own lives.