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I’m all for marking important anniversaries and milestones, both happy and tragic–your parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the .
But the 20th anniversary of the release of the movie, “Dirty Dancing“? Somehow, I don’t think that’s an important anniversary . . . at all. Yet, today and tomorrow, movie theaters all over the country are showing the movie to “mark” the “occasion.” The studio reps even sent me press releases about it. And there are tons of news stories about it. “Dirty Dancing”? This is news? Oy.

USA Today even a week or so ago, looking at what the movie’s star are doing now. Here’s my version of what Patrick Swayze is doing now–the version you didn’t see in USA Today or People, and the reason I think it’s hilarious we’re celebrating a movie and its relatively insignificant participants:
Patrick Swayze became a transvestite and a bar brawler in trashy on-screen bombs after the hit, “Ghost” and never recovered. Then, he drove his plane drunk, crashed, and lied about it to police. But it got worse from there. Swayze made failed plans to about a kid who is adopted by a Sultan and grows to be a great, respected Muslim Sheikh (the true story on which it was based actually consisted of a non-Muslim kid who was kidnapped from his parents by a Muslim Sultan and raised as a Muslim). Then, at the beginning of the Iraq War, he Then, he . Really, he knows anti-Semites because he also raises anti-Semitic horses. (I did like him in “Red Dawn” and “North and South,” though.)
And something I thought I’d never see: Swayze’s hit single, “She’s Like the Wind,” from the “Dirty Dancing” Soundtrack is now a remade hip-hop hit (currently on the charts and enjoying radio airplay), “She’s Like the Wind,” performed by Lumidee, Featuring Tony Sunshine. . .

And there’s also this hit hip-hop version by Vibekingz, Featuring Maliq, which is better:

Then, there’s Jennifer Grey. Well, she got a nosejob, and it was a career-ending move. Other than “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (which was before “Dirty Dancing”), we hardly know her.
The only guy whose acting career took off was Jerry Orbach, who did “Law & Order.” And he’s dead, now.
Sorry, but there’s nothing about this cheesy movie–that was a cute hit in its day, but became a tired fade that didn’t stand the test of time–that is worth celebrating. I’m not saying the movie–very loosely based on a past era in which Jewish families vacationed in New York’s Catskill Mountains–is a bad thing to celebrate. I’m just asking: why is this necessary? It’s a tired, old movie with no important message or impact on America. That’s it. Nothing more.
I can see –which was emblematic of America’s blue-collar can-do spirit in a time of economic hardship. But “Dirty Dancing”? Huh? Come on.
Hey, America, stop celebrating the meaningless. We have so much with meaning that we can celebrate and/or memorialize. Who needs to “Remember Dirty Dancing”?