Romeo and Juliet is a remake of the William Shakespeare Love story. The film is spoken in the old English language of the play but is set in the 20th century. The film mainly portrayed the love between the young couple with actions and visual codes in the characters surroundings.
A simple example of a typical love story would be Pretty Woman (directed by Garry Marshall in 1990). This has all of the typical elements of the romantic genre, it doesn’t however posses many other elements that makes the film different from many other typical romance stories. Romeo and Juliet and Love Actually have certain different conventions that make them stand out from other stories.
The Romance genre involves the following conventions. Girl meets Guy, they fall in love, dilemma intervenes with 'happy ever after', they face dilemma and fix it, they live happily ever after. This Romantic genre ties in with the other love stories, like Romeo and Juliet and Pretty Woman, which is very much like a modern day version of Cinderella. The familiar macro elements of a Love story are present in these films. 'Baby and Jonny' both fall in love. 'Baby’s' father and 'Jonny’s' work boundaries are the disruptions of this story.
The opening credits are written over a black and white slow motion image of 'dirty dancers'(we later discover that these are the staff at the holiday resort). It makes us see that this film is romantic and sensual adding to the audience’s realisation of the romance genre. This introduction gives the audience a taster of the film. The dancers in the background and jazzy pink font of the credits are a good way of making the audience read the credits and take notice of the important actors and what is to come in the film.
The opening scenes show the setting and brief descriptions of the different characters. The setting is in a holiday resort called 'Kellermans'. 'Baby', her sister, mother and father are travelling in a typical 1960's family estate car. This portrays them as the quintessential American family. The father, typically known as the head of the family, is driving everyone to the holiday resort. There is an old radio programme in the background and 'Baby' is narrating this opening scene.
She tells us a lot of who she is and who she wants to be. 'Baby' tells us of how she has a great relationship with her father and she wants to join the Peace Corps "...I thought I would never find a guy as great as my Dad." This small quote gives the audience a clue to the events which are about to unfold in the story and that 'Baby' is a young innocent girl. This is why this story appealed to the many young and old women that enjoyed this film. The holiday romance element also made this film attractive to the female audience.
She is the young innocent girl we watch grow in to a woman. Her narration of the story also allows us to realise her as the main protagonist in the film and empathise with her character.
The introduction of the characters one-by-one shows us immediately who we should and should not like.
What makes 'Dirty Dancing' the same as other romantic films is the way it focuses on the teenage dilemma. The fact that most teenagers defy their parents to learn for themselves regardless of what they were taught. Baby does exactly this and confronts her father; this is what makes the film appeal to the female audience. The reason 'Dirty Dancing's audience is still as big now as it was in 1987 is because teenage culture has changed very little and the accuracy of the problems faced in the film are very similar to what teenagers face now.
The glue that holds this holiday romance together is the dancing. We watch their love grow in this film because of the dancing. The dancing represents the bond that is needed for love to grow or for a great dance routine to work. The dance routine is a metaphor for their relationship. When 'Jonny' is teaching 'Baby' how to dance it highlights her growing awareness that the world is a lot more different to how her father has taught her as she has grown up. We watch her learn different dance moves in the same way that she learns about different emotions. The dancing 'Baby' has been taught represents the lessons she is learning about life.
As an audience, it is easy to join in and sing and dance along to the musical soundtrack. The film is almost interactive, in the way the audience wants to get up and join in. The music is so upbeat it is almost impossible to stay sat in a chair. Most other romances, like Romeo and Juliet make the audience want to sit in their beds or on their couches with a box of chocolates and an endless supply of tissue. I think Dirty Dancing did so well because the audience becomes more active and they find it difficult to stay passive.
1963 is the year the film is set. At this point in time culture was changing completely. Before the 1960’s sex and informal/casual relationships in America and Britain were frowned upon. Many people from the 1900’s to the late 1950’s were married by the time they were 20. This film exposes the dawning of a new age in teenage and adult behaviour. For the past 40 years not much has changed. I think this is another reason many people related to this film.
The last scene shows 'Jonny' facing his boss. He explains to the audience in the film and at home that he has learnt a lesson about who he wants to be and that 'Baby' has helped him realise that he is good person. This is a heart warming scene where the audience is captured by 'Jonny's' speech. The female audience empathises with 'Jonny' and is now ready to see that both 'Baby and Jonny' have learnt different lessons, all lessons that are similar to the audience. We also see that 'Baby' has faced her father, this is possibly the part of the film that the female audience relates to the most because of the protective shield the majority of young women face from their parents.
When they perform their dance together on the stage and bring everyone together on the dance floor, it demonstrates the love between them is now complete. At the very end of the film 'Baby' makes the ‘lift’ that both she and 'Jonny' failed to achieve throughout the film. This moment revisits the fact that the dancing is a metaphor. It shows that their love is complete and that they no longer have any restraint from reaching their full potential as a couple.
In conclusion the audience’s response is generated from conventions that are similar to our own life or fantasies. The audience relate to the learning experience 'Baby' faces throughout the film and they also relate to the fantasy of the holiday romance. The audience also finds that they can relate to the lack of change in teenage culture over the last 40 years. The fact that the behaviour of children and young adults has always been to ignore their guardian’s lessons to learn facts and truth for themselves is present in this story and the audience find it easy to relate to this. The happy ending typifies the romantic genre and this reminds the audience that love conquers all.
