Damn Space

The other day I had the marvelous opportunity to watch one of the greatest movies ever made.  I'll give you a second to guess.  If anyone thinks of a Wes Anderson movie I'm going to have to politely ask you to exit my blog.  Seriously, hipsters - no one understands those movies.  Even you don't.

Okay, some of you probably thought of this already so I'll just say it - Dirty Dancing.  Why Dirty Dancing? (If you are questioning that I, again, might have to ask you to come back another day.)  Alright, why is Dirty Dancing a masterpiece? Um, besides the dancing and music, let's try the story of triumph of two worlds finding each other and falling in love?!  Accomplishing a goal?  Hard lessons on falling for the wrong guy?  The journey of becoming a woman?!  People, I can't teach a Cinema 101 class here.

Alright, needless to say I love this movie. I loved it when I was forbidden to see at the age of 8 and I still love it today.  However, I must admit that I didn't fully grasp a lot of the movie when I first saw it.  Never caught the "dirty dancing" aspect - just thought people danced close and never really understood what got Penny so in trouble - just thought she had a bad stomach ache.  And lastly, I never caught one of the memorable lines of the movie.  (No not the" ...baby in a corner" one.)  Instead, there's a moment when Patrick Swayze is teaching Jennifer Grey how to dance and he grasps her arms, and while making motion between them says, "This is my dance space, and that is your dance space."  At age 8, I thought he said, "This is my damn space and that is your damn space."  (What can I say, I lived in a home with a lot of profanity.) Consequently, for the next 20 years or so I managed to say that line to numerous people in numerous situations.  For example, I remember jumping on a trampoline with some friends when I screamed out, as one got too close to me, "Listen, this is my damn space and that is your damn space."  It now makes sense why they seemed a little offended.  Then there was another time when I finally convinced my boyfriend to come out dancing with me, when after a few minutes of awkward swaying back and forth, I grabbed his shoulders, and did my best Patrick Swayze impression as I yelled to him about his "damn space."  After a few seconds he walked away from me.  At the time, I just thought we were just having another passive aggressive fight, not a gross misunderstanding of a movie line.  Oh, had I known.

So listen kids, I think we all know the lesson here: if you are going to watch movies that are forbidden at least learn the right lines.