Next up, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

So I saw Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights today, in the exact same theater in which I had seen Win a Date With Tad Hamilton a couple of weeks ago. What I found most interesting about both of these movies (beyond the whole, "how could I continue to find such movies entertaining or plunk down $10.25 I don't have to see them?" thing), was the audience. At Tad, I was sitting next to three 14-year old girls who would squeal every time Tad Hamilton took his shirt off, said something, smiled, or appeared on screen, making the whole movie a kind of "meta" (a gag-worthy description if their ever was one) experience; actresses playing swooning teenagers on screen shriek in synch with real swooning teenagers over the same fake person.
When I sat down for Dirty Dancing I glanced around the theater, checking to see if I would have such delightful company this time around. Like before, everyone was pretty much female, with the odd whipped/ good sport boyfriend or gay man. This time though, everyone was old.
And then I realized, they weren't old, they were, holy shit, my age. And we were all way too old to be at a movie like this. Where were the teenagers we could laugh at? The teenagers we would use to make fun of ourselves for being here, while secretly feeling better than them? Where were the little ones to pin all our chatter and giggles and squeals on? They were no where to be found, because they don't even fucking know what Dirty Dancing is. It's, like, you know, that great old movie they rent for sleep over parties when Clueless and Can't Hardly Wait are out of the video store. And here we, all us 20-somethings, were, paying homage to the original (which, I swear, I have only seen once), clapping like tweens when Patrick Swayze appeared in a guest role. (He too has aged, and not gracefully. His ears are enormous and stick out of his head funny.)
But, before I could feel too bad about the whole thing, the movie turned up some of the worst line readings I have ever, ever, ever heard in my life and we all just got to laugh at it, proving we don't take anything too seriously. And then they danced and it was, seriously, so good that I clapped. I might as well behave like a teenager at a movie for them.