Dirty Dancing: 5 Times Baby And Johnny Are The Perfect Couple (& 5 Not)

Johnny and Baby are the classic rom com couple in Dirty Dancing – but are they really perfect for each other?

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Dirty Dancing, as well as being a smart critique of class inequality, is also a tale of brief yet complicated love. Baby and Johnny, well-played by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, are from very different worlds. Johnny comes from a working-class background and spends his time on the other side of the club campus from Baby, where he works as a dance instructor and where she stays for the summer with her upper-class family.

Baby has dreams which she has full confidence she will accomplish–it shouldn’t be too hard, with her well-to-do background and the stable support of her parents. Johnny has been independent since he was a teenager and spends his days worrying about being employed for the next season. They are a strange fit, but there are many things that make them work. Here are instances that show why Baby and Johnny are the ideal couple, and 5 they aren’t.

10 Perfect: Johnny Encourages Baby To Dance

Baby begins as a timid and unsure person. When she sees the club dancers she lights up with curiosity, and her fascination draws her to closer to their lives. But it isn’t until Johnny sees Baby standing on the sidelines of the dance floor, nodding her head in time with the music, that baby is pulled out of her shell. Johnny takes her hand and gives her some tips for how to move, thus beginning her relationship with dance and her growth as a person.

9 Not Perfect: Johnny Resents Baby

They make a lot of headway in their relationship, but the wall created by the class differences between Baby and Johnny never completely dissipates. Baby’s father doesn’t treat Johnny with any semblance of kindness until the end of the movie, and at this point, it’s implied that Baby and Johnny’s relationship has come to an end, anyway. If they were to continue, Johnny would have to either accept his difference to Baby’s family or have some kind of heart to heart which allowed him to overcome his feeling of difference toward them.

8 Perfect: Baby Makes Johnny More Lighthearted

Baby and Johnny have to spend an extensive amount of time together in order to train Baby for the dance performance where she’s volunteered to step in as Penny. Their interactions start out tense and serious, and Johnny is frustrated with Baby’s sense of humor. If she can’t get a move down, she will laugh about it instead of getting angry. Eventually, we see Johnny get used to Baby’s lighter attitude, and even admiring it.

7 Not Perfect: Baby Can’t Understand Johnny’s Background

Baby is the optimist of the film. Any conflict that arises, she is sure it can be solved. But, as the poorer characters point out, it’s easy for Baby to flout such optimism when she comes from a world where most everything is within her reach. She is not used to overcoming the type of obstacles that the dancers are faced with. She doesn’t understand the complexities of their lives, doesn’t realize that the romantic notion of saying “no” to the powers that be isn’t as easy as that.

6 Perfect: Johnny Stands Up For Baby

Johnny begins as Baby’s biggest critic, skeptical about her interest in the group of dancers. He’s used to visitors to the club betraying him and his friends, and he doesn’t trust her not to do the same. But the more Johnny gets to know Baby, the more he believes that her efforts to help people are genuine.

He eventually becomes her biggest advocate, believing in her more than she even believes in herself at times. When Baby learns that Johnny will be fired despite her efforts she becomes crestfallen, sure that there’s no point in trying in life. Johnny, usually the one saying such things, refuses to let Baby succumb to self-doubt.

5 Not Perfect: Baby Won’t Tell Her Father About Johnny

Baby reveals her feelings of affection to Johnny, and they start sneaking away together whenever they can. It seems like they are both in agreement to be doing this, perhaps fearing for Johnny’s job, but when Baby pulls Johnny behind a bush to hide from her father Johnny responds with genuine hurt. Johnny knows that Baby’s father matters to her, and if Johnny mattered enough to her she would tell her father about him. He accuses her of never having any intention to tell her father about him, and although she protests, she never actually does tell her father.

4 Perfect: Johnny Checks Baby’s Privilege

Baby consistently asserts her opinions on everyone else’s lives. She wants to be helpful, meaning to inspire people to reach for more. What she doesn’t realize is that things aren’t nearly as simple as she makes them out to be. She gives opinions without fully knowing what she is talking about. After seeing Baby’s doctor father save Penny, Johnny exclaims that her father treated him like he’s nothing because it’s true, he is nothing. Baby tells him he shouldn’t think this way, and that his life doesn’t have to be so hard. She’s a good partner for telling him he’s worth something, but over-steps in telling him to live. Johnny knows how naive she is, and tells her so.

3 Not Perfect: Johnny Talks to Baby Like She’s A Child

Johnny and Baby’s age difference is not explicitly shared. We know that Baby is intended for college in the fall, and that’s about it. She definitely looks way younger, and his awareness of her naivety about life speaks to the fact that there’s more to it than her privileged lifestyle–she’s also just purely inexperienced because she’s young. Still, all seems legal and not too much of an issue otherwise. It is a little weird, though, when Baby tells Johnny her real name is Frances and he responds that it’s such an ‘adult’ name… as if he doesn’t think of her as an adult.

2 Perfect: Johnny Makes Himself Vulnerable

Johnny is a unique leading man in that he is the one waiting for Baby to commit to him, not the other way around. Usually, it’s the female in straight rom-com partnerships who feels betrayed and used by the male, but in this situation, Johnny is the vulnerable character.

Johnny shares his past of being used with Baby, making clear to her that he’s serious about her and has reason to be afraid that she will use him. So many times the man’s refusal to face his feelings and insecurities is the cause for unnecessary fuss in relationships, and it’s lovely to see Johnny’s character set an example of openness and honesty.

1 Not Perfect: Baby Is Short-Sighted

Baby seems to adore Johnny, but we are never sure if she isn’t mostly wrapped up in the romantic idea of him. She never gives much solid evidence that she is serious about him. She tells him she is terrified of never again feeling the way she feels with him, but that doesn’t sound so different from the scenarios he faces with the club wives who use him as an escape from their regular lives. Baby walks into every situation without thinking through the consequences, and this isn’t a good behavior to display in a relationship.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dirty-dancing-5-times-baby-and-johnny-are-the-perfect-couple-5-not/