The Bechdel Cast - Dirty Dancing with Emily Ruskowski
Episode Date: May 22, 2017Nobody puts Caitlin and Jamie in a corner! Guest Emily Ruskowski joins us for a special bonus episode about Dirty Dancing!(This episode contains spoilers)Follow @EmilyRuskowski on Twitter! While you'r...e there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated.
Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.
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That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas.
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Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful.
Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,
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Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.
And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden.
We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.
There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career.
That's where we come in.
Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice.
And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,
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little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism?
The patriarchy's effin' vast.
Start changing it with the Bechdel cast.
Hi and welcome to the Bechdel cast.
My name is Caitlin.
My name is Jenny.
And we are recording an intro for an episode that we did live.
We did a live episode for the Women in Comedy Festival In Boston, Massachusetts
At Improv Boston
It was so much fun
This happened in late April
We had a great time
It was our first live episode
Which brings us to
Why we're recording the intro in Los Angeles
Well, the audio quality turned out to be not super great.
Which are bad.
We didn't check stuff and we're learning.
I would like to blame the patriarchy.
Yeah, I'm triggered.
Yeah.
As always, I'm triggered.
No, we're not triggered.
Right.
A new podcast.
A great shirt.
Yeah, so recording this little intro, we're going to do some stuff at the top, Never not triggered. Right. A new podcast. A great shirt. Yeah.
So recording this little intro, we're going to do some stuff at the top, like reintroduce
our guest and things like that.
But yeah, we apologize for the audio quality being not super great.
Fortunately, the best audio quality that came out of it, which shout out to Caitlin for
sifting through all the audio of us yelling, but our guest's audio came out pretty well.
And so most of her sage points remain intact.
Indeed.
Yes.
Also shout out to our producer,
Aristotle,
for always giving us great audio quality.
We didn't know how good we had it till he was gone.
So true.
It's how it always is.
But thank you to the Women in Comedy Festival for letting us do it.
Thank you to Improv Boston for having us.
And thank you to our guest, Emily Ruszkowski, who is a good friend of both of ours.
She is a comic in Boston.
She's so funny.
She's been on two Dope Queens.
She does shows all around the city.
She's originally out of D.C.
She's just she's a goddess.
She's the best.
We're so happy we had her.
She brought us the movie Dirty Dancing. She's originally out of DC. She's a goddess. She's the best. We're so happy we had her.
She brought us the movie Dirty Dancing.
And also, I know we always say we're going to put it in the description, but we have a great picture of the three of us for this one.
Yeah.
She brought us Dirty Dancing and she dressed as Patrick Swayze.
Yes.
She dressed in all black.
She cosplayed as Johnny Castle.
It was unbelievable. And she came out to the stage. We called her up to the stage. as Johnny Castle. It was unbelievable.
And she came out to the stage.
We called her up to the stage.
We had no idea this was happening.
She came out to the stage carrying a watermelon, which is a reference to the movie.
Yeah.
She was doing Baby and Johnny Castle at the same time.
Yeah.
She's that good.
She's that good.
Yeah.
We have to do a little bit more of the i have to start with the recap the live episode picks up when i'm like in the middle of the famous okay okay recap it's so funny like we
sound like garbage in the recording like pretty universally because we're always like
and our guests were very cool very composed yeah uh mostly i think i'm like 90 talked about jerry orbach in this
episode so you didn't miss anything you can confirm yeah so dirty dancing is a story about
a character named baby played by jennifer gray she and her rich family go to a rich people camp
jerry orbach is her father they go to this summer camp to learn about how to dance and how to wear wigs and other things.
Yeah, wigs outside.
That's a fun scene.
Wigs outside.
What if wigs, but like outside?
Yeah.
Love it.
Sold.
She's like, oh, I want to hang out with these cool people.
They seem to be dancing.
So there's this staff of people.
The sexy working class.
The sexy poor. Yes yes the sexy poor this is
a new this is it doesn't exist in the real world but it's prevalent in this camp the fuckable poor
i'm glad you brought it up because it's it's an important thing that we do address we call back
the sexy poor yes so she's like oh who are these people who are dancing all cool and they're hot
and they're poor and because they're like the work staff they're the the teachers who teach the dance class, the wait staff, all this stuff.
She's like, I want to get in with this group.
And the main one, the coolest one is the king of the hot pores.
His name is Johnny Castle, baby.
And he has a friend named Penny.
And Penny finds herself in a situation where she is pregnant and she does not want to be because she got pregnant by this character named Robbie, who is a piece of shit.
Not sexy or poor.
Right.
Hate.
Hate.
So baby's like, I want to help.
I'm going to help with this.
She's like, here, I'm going to get some money for you.
The thing is, though, there's a...
Oh, the traveling abortionist!
He's like a carnival guy.
He comes around, he tours nonstop.
He's like Bruce Springsteen.
He comes to your town every so often
and gives you an abortion.
Is he good at abortions?ions no but he's the amazing traveling
abortionist uh but there's also some very interesting context for that that we'll get into
which made me feel bad for you know saying what i just did which was the uh the traveling
abortionist in a fun way and then an audience remember gave us some incredible context and
now we can share it but i also got to do the thing yes so right right yeah so the thing is johnny and his like dancing
partner penny have this gig that they have to do on a thursday but oh no that's the only day that
the traveling abortionist comes to town crazy plot hole so right penny goes off and gets her traveling abortion. Meanwhile, baby, they're like, well, someone suggests as a joke, like, what if you dance in her place?
What if you learn these dances, baby?
And she's like, well, OK.
And John Castle's like, no freaking way.
I'm King Poor.
I don't dance with baby rich.
But then it ends up happening anyway.
She's like, I'm going to prove myself.
And then they start training.
There's a bunch of training montages.
And then this is pretty much where...
Hungry ass.
That's the longest training montage ever.
All butts.
So many butts.
So many butts.
Equal opportunity though.
Male, female.
We're looking at a lot of butts.
Love it.
Love it.
Love it.
A very horny movie too.
But no depth.
No horny depth.
No.
Unfortunately.
Horny, not a lot of depth.
Yeah.
It's pretty surface horny.
So that's where we kind of pick up on the live episodes.
So we will transition into that.
Please enjoy Emily Roszkowski.
You kind of dodged a bullet with all the Orbach talk, which is my new podcast.
Check it out.
Orbach talk. And is my new podcast. Check it out. Orbach talk.
And enjoy.
Enjoy.
Then what happens?
Surprise.
The traveling abortion is not too good.
No.
Not too good.
He messes it up.
We're not told exactly how, and that's probably for the best.
But it's like real bad.
So how they get to do the abortion is because Baby went to her dad and asked for the money.
She lied to Jerry.
She lied to Jerry Orbach.
She lied to Jerry Orbach.
That is wonderful.
Let's just take a moment.
Have you ever seen Law and Order?
I can't.
You don't lie to Jerry Orbach and get away with it.
Well, yeah.
So, yeah, she lies to her dad about, because he asks if it's illegal, and it is, and she
tells him it's not.
She gets his, she calls him Daddy the whole movie, so there's that.
But she also has Jerry Orbach, so it's like, he's everyone's daddy.
He's everyone's daddy.
America's daddy, Jerry Orbach.
He's a daddy.
So Jerry Orbach winds up paying for this abortion.
And then he goes and finds out what his money was for.
And he freaks out.
And he, like everyone else, assumes that Johnny's the one who got Penny pregnant.
I see why Jerry Orbach was upset.
No one communicates with him.
No one gives it to him straight.
And if you've seen him in Law and Order, he needs you to give it to him straight.
He's like, I can end up when I'm wrong.
Yeah, when I'm wrong, you just gotta give it to me straight.
He bans Baby from hanging out with him.
So what does she do?
She starts having sex with Johnny Castle.
Like immediately.
The timeline's also weird in this movie
because it's like we're here at the beginning of the summer.
They're training the waiters.
The dance chef just got here.
But also Penny's already pregnant by Robbie.
So when did that happen?
A whole summer passes.
I'd like to backtrack a little bit to the scene with the watermelon where Baby meets Billy, who I love.
Billy is Johnny Castle's cousin.
We assume his name is Billy Castle, but we don't know for sure.
We don't know.
But Billy, who's a sweetheart and doesn't find love.
No.
He doesn't deserve it because he's shorter than Johnny.
According to 1960s logic. 1960s logic.
He is unfuckable.
Even though he's also a 10 like the rest of us.
He is a working class babe.
There's a whole camp.
It's like weird looking rich people and very hot port people.
Yeah.
Which is great.
That's how I would like the whole world to be but uh so billy says like hey i've got these watermelons it's more articulate
want to bring them into the basement with me where everyone's fuck dancing
and then she sees johnny castle and penny dancing together very sexually. They're the best at fuck dancing.
And everyone knows it.
And then there's this moment
where Baby asks Billy Castle,
oh, aren't they together?
And he's like, no,
they were together when they were kids,
but not anymore.
Immediately cut to a shot
of what looks like Patrick Swayze
going down on Penny while holding her six feet in the air.
And Baby isn't like, are you sure?
Seems like there might be something there.
How old is Patrick Swayze in this movie?
Are we talking about that he's fucking a teenager,
or is it cute?
Maybe he's supposed to be like 18. johnny's probably like 22 23 but he's actually 35 but yes correct
he looks much older than her uh yeah i couldn't tell how old he was supposed to be which again
because i want to be on jerry or buck's side at every point in this movie. Again, I'm just like, you know what? If a man of indeterminable age, who I had already known was a gigolo, was pursuing my daughter,
I too would be like, hey, maybe not.
You know?
Yeah.
So it all kind of culminates, right?
They're fucking, everything's great.
And then wallets start getting stolen.
And they suspect that it is Johnny Castle.
Baby comes forward.
She's like, oh, we were together.
He gets fired.
Again, is it better to have stolen a wallet or had sex with a teenager?
You know, again, we had that age old dilemma.
Like there's no winning for him and then at the end johnny comes back and he's like i have a speech
to give and he gives it gives that speech and then before that he grabs baby and he says the
famous line from the movie nobody puts baby in a corner and then he yanks her out of the corner
which can we tell you what that means exactly is it like literally because she's like sitting in a corner and then he yanks her out of the corner which can we tell you what that means exactly is it like literally because she's like sitting in a corner she's literally in a corner
and he's like that's not okay and no one's like why you just they're like you're right and that's
right is it a figurative corner is a literal corner what does he mean i never understood this
quote she seemed to be moved by it i was openly crying i love the scene where baby basically says
okay i've been fucking the beefcake and jerry or buck and she's like but you suck too
and then jerry or buck cries and you're just like oh he's so raw
uh that well the aftermath of that though kind of bothered me because then uh first of all johnny
was given like the big climactic speech at the end baby isn't even though she's the main character
you think she would have this like cathartic moment to be like i'm tired of everyone putting
me in the corner literally and figuratively and talk it as you will she has a speech she could give
we just never hear it
she kind of has a speech
but not like to everybody
in a big way
and there's I mean and
again it's like I never
want it to sound like we're cutting a movie
slack when they're not doing the right thing
and they're not doing right by their female characters
but this movie does take place in 1963 which sort of shifts the context a little bit the
more i thought about certain scenes where in 1963 i mean to me it was kind of impressive that uh
parents were so on board with both of their daughters going to college and like really
making careers for themselves.
But then, on the other hand,
they are actively trying to marry them off.
Right.
But I don't know.
I mean, we weren't around.
I'm kidding.
I'm 400 years old.
But I don't know.
Putting it in context of the time it was supposed to take place,
even though it takes place in the 60s, it feels like a very 1987 movie.
Like all the hair and the outfits are 1987,
but they're like, President Kennedy, not dead yet.
So you're like, okay.
I thought they'd make a point of telling you President Kennedy's not dead yet
so you can be like, okay, I can enjoy this now.
It was a simple time. It's important.
I actually, so I think the female characters
in this movie are great.
Like, I think they're really, I think Penny
is awesome. I think Babe, like
the main character is named after
Frances Perkins, first woman in the cabinet,
FDR's labor secretary. Like, that's our
main character. But then again, they call
her Baby. Like, so there's parts that you're like i like that a lot of times hollywood films will be like oh
character's pregnant well she's only got one option and that's to have the baby right and
the way that abortion is approached in this movie is and it's not made out to be the issue that a movie in 1963 or 87 could have made
it out to be as this big like is it ethical to do it like baby is immediately like oh we've got to
get you money to get this abortion and then when penny finds out you know like there's a moment of
back and forth but the only reason there's a back and forth of whether she'll do it or not
is because her whole year's salary runs on one dance gig.
Has nothing to do with the ethics of abortion.
And I was, I mean, I hadn't seen this movie in, like, ten years, and I was surprised that it was dealt with that maturely, of, like, that didn't become a focal right point yeah of it well even when her dad is
criticizing what happened right he's not like there's no big abortion is wrong speech you just
like you're hanging around with unsavory people primarily the guys because he doesn't seem to be
judgmental whatsoever towards penny and that he helps her he comes to check on her the next day
he cares for her in a very kind way but he thinks these guys like he's like these are unsavory people and that's what she has the conversation when she
says you let me down too that's sort of what she's talking about is you taught me to help people and
to care and you judged them without knowing them so that's where and i like that too again there
wasn't this big like moral issue around the abortion it was this is something this is their reality that robbie has completely removed himself from and that penny now has to
deal with baby's gonna come and help her and baby senses judgment on behalf of her dad who helped
very much and saved penny but she's angry with him that he's looking down on people and she's
like you taught me not to be that person you can't be that person either and jerry knows when he's looking down on people and she's like you taught me not to be that person you can't be that
person either and jerry knows when he's wrong he does he admits it he's wrong he says he's wrong
but he doesn't apologize to baby then and only does he uh the only time he like changes his mind
about the whole thing is when what's his name robbie is like oh thanks for helping out with
the penny thing i was the one who it's only at that point whenever
jerry's like oh well if this rich boy is telling me that what really happened that's when i'll
believe it's well that's another tricky thing too because it's like it is his teenage daughter
who he seems to trust throughout the movie until he finds out that she has lied to him
and it's like i i don't know i mean if you're a parent and you find out your she has lied to him. And it's like, I don't know. I mean, if you're a parent and you find out your kid has lied to you about one big thing,
it's hard to be like, well, but probably everything else is the truth.
Because, I mean, teenagers are big fat liars.
So, I don't know.
Like, I could see that both ways.
Yeah, I suppose.
Even when he said, who's responsible for this girl?
Like, Penny's a grown woman.
But I think he, in the context of when it was supposed to take place, he saw this woman who was left, because he said you got her in trouble.
Like, you left this woman to deal with this by herself.
You sent her to this butcher.
He's at the same time got that 1963 mentality of, like take care of women and women can't really take care of themselves.
But he also encourages his daughters to be more than that because Robbie tells him accidentally.
He believes Robbie because Robbie didn't mean to tell him because Robbie was like, I thought you knew.
Because he's like, hey, thanks for dealing with it.
And he, I think in that moment, had that realization.
Robbie thinks he and Dr. Houseman are the same robbie thinks they're
in this like old boys club like hey thanks for taking care of that and dr houseman is kind of
yanked out of that and it's like this guy's the piece of shit not the guy i thought but everybody
assumed as far as i think that his character is doing pretty well given the era he is where to
believe he's living in and it's like it's
definitely not perfect and there is i mean i wouldn't say that he considers men and women
to be completely equal it's pretty clear that that is not the case for him but but as far as
1963 dealing with a teenage daughter who's clearly uh and, you know, fucking up as any teenager would.
I never, I made mistakes.
I'm sorry, Tina's never made a mistake before.
My mistake as a teenager had been having sex with Patrick Swayze.
And speaking to, like, there's, so there's a conflict between Swayze and Orbach,
which, first of all, I'm hooked.
The whole reason that that problem arises is because when Jerry Orbach comes to see what's going on
after Penny's traveling abortionist thing doesn't go well,
but when he goes to try to patch that situation up, asks yeah like who's responsible for this girl which
is a vague question and patrick swasey says me because he's her best friend and sort of views
himself as the one who looks out for her and had patrick swasey at any point just said that was
what i meant when i said that we could have saved an hour of conflict between the two of them. I think one of the themes of the movie is integrity.
And who has it and who doesn't.
And he sees Rob, like you very clearly, the villain is the guy with no integrity.
Who reads Ayn Rand.
Yeah, exactly.
See?
Right?
The guy with no integrity.
And then the working class people that everyone's looking down on are the ones that have the integrity.
And part of the reason they didn't tell everybody that it's robbie is because it's penny's private information and she
didn't want anybody to know so they didn't tell anybody even though it would have been so much
easier that's why when baby is encouraging lisa to stay away from robbie and not have sex with him
she doesn't say he knocked somebody up because it's penny's business and if penny doesn't want
anybody to know nobody has
a right to tell anybody even if it would make everything so much easier and that's why like
there's this big sense of like right and wrong they never wrap abortion into that and be like
abortion is wrong so i thought that was a great it's a movie that deals with right and wrong and
morality that doesn't put that judgment on abortion, too, which I thought was really interesting. Which would have been such an easy choice to make.
And another thing about the very sexy poor that we have in this movie is that they, unlike
the, you know, looking rich, with the exception of Jerry Robach, is that the very sexy poor
all have a lot of respect for each other and treat each other way more fairly than the upper echelon people do.
Where Patrick Swayze and Penny, even though I'm like, what is, I get like, there's a lot of positive male-female friendships.
But he is almost eating her pussy like seven different times in this movie.
And he's like, but we're friends.
And I was like, okay.
I like that they did that i agree with you but i like that they did that that her character exists
not as anyone's romantic interest right like there's a female character who's not the main
character who exists in these like she forms this bond with baby where they're clearly women who
have nothing in common at the beginning and baby when baby comes up to her and says i envy you and penny had just watched robbie hitting on lisa she's pregnant she got kicked out of her house
at 16 and she like her life is a shit show and this doctor's daughter rich girl who's at a summer
resort is saying i envy you like that's where they start and i think they come so far as to this place of like mutual respect for one another and i also like that when johnny gives his speech at the end
i don't think anybody mentions baby's appearance in the movie like at all like johnny never says
like you look like when he's like this is why i love her he doesn't say you're so beautiful he's
like she has integrity and she's smart and she's brave and she helps people and she inspires me to be a better person because she's such a good person.
Right.
Oh, I wanted to talk about the scene.
One of the scenes that does pass the Bechdel test is between Baby and Penny on the Thursday, which is the only day the traveling abortionist can come. And it's also when Baby's about to do the one show that everyone's income depends on.
They have this scene together that I thought was really nice to a certain point
where Penny is helping Baby get ready, and they're talking about dancing,
and Baby's nervous, and then Penny, the scene ends with Penny saying,
I'm scared to get an abortion which
apparently she should be this traveling abortion is not very good but before that she says to penny
like i just want you to know i don't really sleep around and i thought that robbie really loved me
and that didn't seem like super necessary to bring into it because like it doesn't super matter which is kind of nitpicky but
then again that might also just speak to the relationship between these characters where
penny probably feels like richer people judge her and assume that she would be like the type
to sleep around or however that's perceived it kind of goes back to like the the slut shaminess
that exists in this movie,
where it's like, I don't want you to think I'm a slut.
Opposite for me.
I go out and I say, hey, Ron, what's up?
I don't say anything.
I just want people to guess.
To be fair, that same, like, the sexy porn,
do you have a fear of being slut shamed across the board?
Because then there's that weird
scene in Swayze's cabin,
which is a book I would like
to write.
There's
a scene in Swayze's cabin
after he and
he and Baby have
had sex, I hope with protection,
who knows, but Baby is like sex, I hope with protection, who knows.
But Baby is like, you know, teasing him,
and is like, how many women have you been with?
And honestly, I'm like, I want to know, we don't know how old you are.
Like, maybe a ballpark figure would be helpful.
But Swayze starts talking about something we already know,
which is that he's low-key a gigolo.
But then totally disclaims that by, basically, he has this weird speech
where he's like, but you don't understand.
You come here, and suddenly there's all these women,
and they're throwing themselves at you,
and they're putting their key cards in your pockets,
and you show up, and you think they love you.
It's like, Swayze, no you don't. You don't think someone slips their key card in your back pocket, a known married person, and is like, Swayzy's had sex with however many people. We don't know how old he is.
But he implies that every time he's had sex, it's because he thought he was in love.
And then he got stiff.
In his defense, in defense of Swozy, that's all I'm going to say.
In his defense, because there's a moment when, also in that conversation, he's like,
oh, they're shoving
diamonds in your pocket yeah as we learn from titanic you show you love someone by giving them
a diamond right that's true because caledon hockley right he's also super poor right so all
the kids they're super poor when he's like he's eating candy to stay a
lot and he's like to do bees to stay alive and then he goes there and women are just giving him
all this i think anybody in that situation like he's super overwhelmed by like sure like during
the year i'm flat broke i can barely survive and then all summer it's sex and money all over the
place i think it's a weird and i also think i think that
the scene in the locker room with penny and baby i liked that they did that that penny because
before that a lot of her interactions you don't know shit about me and like she very quickly
dismisses baby right and then you see her vulnerability when she's like she's ashamed
of herself because people have always treated her
like that and i think that's where you see who baby really is because penny's expecting to be
slut shamed and that's why she says it because she's expecting baby to judge her and at no point
is she met with judgment by baby at all and i think it shows you this bond is developed between
these women and baby isn't who
she thought she was right and she baby was never gonna it wouldn't have occurred to baby to judge
her but penny's so used to everybody treating her like that her whole life that she feels like she
has to preempt it by addressing right and that's like the uh the sort of speech that she gives the
baby gives her dad toward the end when she's like, there's some things about me
that you may not like
and you don't know about me,
but if you love me,
you have to love all of me.
Basically saying,
I have sex now, daddy,
and you have to be okay with it.
Sorry, daddy.
And then daddy cries.
Real quick,
can we talk about how much emphasis
is placed on the lift and how i want to develop an
app called the lift similar to lift but instead of picking someone up in a car you just pick them up
and lift them over your head you like say i want that person to come pick me up and lift them over your head. You're like, say, I want that person to come pick me up,
and then you get picked up.
I will absolutely give you startup money.
Great, yes, thank you.
I liked the lift.
I mean, there were so many montages in this movie,
but when they are like, we're having trouble with the lift.
This is where I first started questioning, wait a second,
how old is he when he takes a 17-year-old into the water,
and it's like, okay, we're about to see some nips.
How old is this man again?
Lifting this high school senior.
That said, very horny scene. Liked it.
Does anyone else have any final thoughts about the movie
and the portrayal of women?
We established that, yes, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
Yay!
Baby has conversations
with her mother,
with her sister Lisa,
and with Penny,
all about things
that aren't men.
And with the old grifter.
Yeah, right.
Right.
And then we rate the movie
on a scale of
zero to five nipples
based on its portrayal of women
i was gonna give it three and a half or four okay yeah because i mean you can't give it five
because it was 1963 so you're never gonna win there and you know there there are occasional
jerry moments where it's like oh maybe just believe baby instead of corroborating it with
three different chuds but you know eventually he does believe baby baby is
an exceptional person throughout even when she is helping men she's you know she she makes every
decision for herself and i mean she's the main reason this movie is awesome and penny too penny
is like an awesome female character wish that they had done more slash literally anything with her mom.
I feel like there could have been. Poor Marge.
Marge was sidelined hard.
And the sister's kind of a dummy, but we get to see the, you know, she comes around as well.
And, yeah, I'll skew up.
I'll give her a four.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
It bugged me that, like, the baby doesn't get her, like, big speech at the end.
Like, they give that to Johnny, which maybe, I don't know, he kind of has more at stake, you could argue.
I don't know.
His whole salary.
His whole salary.
But, I don't know.
I just, I wish that she had more of, like, a climactic moment.
She does get the lift, but.
Who cares about the fucking lift?
Oh, by the way, all four of my nipples, some are Jerry Roback young, hot.
Some are Jerry Roback old, still hot.
Cool.
What I love is she doesn't give Penny the money to impress Johnny.
She doesn't do it to get this guy to like her.
She does it because it's what's right, and she doesn't hesitate at all.
I'm going to give it four and a half because because i love again i think the female characters i wish
they had more time to do stuff together uh but i think penny and baby are phenomenal characters
and i love that we got to sort of see that arc between them and that baby's consistent throughout
in like who she is and she winds up teaching even the wisest man alive jerry orbach a thing or
two daddy jerry orbach learns a thing or two about a thing or two daddy knows when he's around
great well thank you so much for being here emily
so that was our live episode thanks to everyone who came to watch it was so much fun we like did
kind of a poll at the beginning they're like who's listened to the podcast before and a bunch of
people clap and they're like who hasn't and then several people clap and we're like great thank you
for just blindly going into this and then we're like who has not seen dirty dancing before and
then several people clapped some people didn't know what the podcast was or the movie.
Yeah.
And it's like, you know, your average podcast host would be like, thank you so much for taking your risk.
Me?
What are you doing?
Like, it's one o'clock.
Why are you here?
Go get lunch.
Yeah.
You had to pay money to be here.
Yeah.
You doofus.
I mean, I would like to assume.
I mean, they were very nice assume. That's so mean. They were very nice.
They were a great audience.
I would like to assume that our podcast, they probably just read the description.
They're like, this sounds so great.
I want to come to this no matter what.
I don't care if I haven't seen the movie.
I just want to see these women talk.
God, I want to see these women talk.
Yeah.
I don't know.
It was great.
If you guys are listening, tell us why you.
Well, we had one audience member who, when we announced what movie we were doing, she audibly gasped.
And she ended up being this incredible source of information.
Yes.
Which we can address now.
So in the live episode where you probably heard part of it, a lot of to do is made about the traveling abortionist.
Abortion is a key plot point in this movie and is treated very responsibly, particularly for
when the movie came out in
87. And we
pointed that out a number of times where Penny's
having an abortion, but the issue is never
the abortion, it's the timing of the
abortion because of the
whole traveling abortionist thing.
And then this same
lovely woman who
gasped when we said dirty dancing approached us after the show and let us know.
And then we researched it and found out more that that was actually done very intentionally by the creators of the movie.
Because in this, I mean, this came out like Reagan era, which is a very back and forth time for reproductive rights. And so it was written very intentionally that way as making
abortion normalized and not a big deal that needs to be harped on.
Exactly. Yeah. She mentioned that this movie was sort of written and made in response to
a series of anti-abortion protests that were happening in the 80s because the movie takes
place in 1963, which is a few years before Roe v. Wade,
before abortion was made legal and more accessible.
And you didn't have to have these back alley abortions
from these traveling abortionists who really just mostly butchered women.
Yeah, she provided a lot of context and information.
So I wish we had gotten her name.
But shout out if you're listening,
and we hope you're still listening because you were so great.
Yeah, thank you for that.
Thank you for, I mean, and to all of our listeners who reach out to us and provide us with additional context.
Helps us.
Helps you guys.
It's great.
We appreciate it.
Everything works out.
It reminds me, though, of a part that I had to cut out of the live episode because the audio was just, I was, I think, screaming.
So it was very distorted.
We were very excited. But there's a part in the movie where Newman,
God, I forget the actor's real name,
but Newman from Seinfeld, he's in the movie.
And he is promoting this class that you can take at this camp
called The Psychology of the Insult Comedian.
It's like glossed over in the movie,
but I honed in on this detail.
I was like, oh my God, I want to take this class. I also want to see a spinoff movie, a spino to a camp and she's like, oh, what's this class?
The psychology?
But then there's a man who's like, I'm the teacher of this class.
Like a 40-year-old road comic and this young woman who's like, I got it.
Don't let young women anywhere near road comics.
They're dirty.
Stay away from them.
They're like, hey, you want to open for me?
I'll give you $25. You're like,
no, I'm not going to get in a car with you.
Oh, there's a part that I had to cut out where I
literally just screamed. I was like, why is
the lift so important? The big lift.
Johnny Cass lost a lift baby up. Why
is there so much emphasis placed on it?
And I scream, fuck the lift.
And I just want everyone
to know how angry I am about
the stupid lift. You were mad about the lift and i i
wasn't mad about the lift emily wasn't mad emily didn't yell once yeah it's almost like she's got
a control on herself that we don't and honestly good for her good for her she's a smart lady yeah
yeah and she's a social worker too that's probably why she didn't yell she's a cool
common collected she's got a degree in having her shit together.
Hey, do you know what I have a degree in?
I don't care.
Me either.
But it is a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.
Oh, yeah.
So, yeah, this was our episode about dirty dancing.
We had so much fun.
We hope we do more live episodes in the future.
We'll let you know if that's the case.
And we will soundcheck next time.
Yes, we sure will.
You can follow us on social media at Bechtelcast on Instagram.
Ever expanding.
On Twitter.
We have a Facebook.
You can like us there.
We post articles.
We post things. We post things.
It's great.
You can rate and listen
and subscribe and review us
and all of those fun things
on iTunes.
And you can follow me
at Caitlin Durante.
I haven't plugged myself
in a while.
Hey, plug it, baby.
Plug it.
Plugs out. Plugs out.
Plugs out.
Hogs out.
You can take your hog out and then type into your browser.
Twitter.com slash hamburger phone.
I'll be there.
Your hog will be there.
And then who knows?
We'll just let nature take its course.
All right.
I think that'll do it.
Okay.
Bye.
Bye.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated.
Crooks Everywhere unnerves the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks.
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Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.
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