May 21, 2024
BOOKSPO 12 (and Season Finale!)
We break ALL THE RULES (okay, there was only ever one rule, but still) with our season finale and the magnificent Andrea Warner’s appearance on the podcast this week. It’s one of my favourite writers talking about my favourite movie, and how it was foundational to Andrea’s own experience and inspired her compelling new homage/memoir/cultural-criticism hybrid, THE TIME OF MY LIFE: DIRTY DANCING, a book I adored.
Andrea talks about why Dirty Dancing is a project worth breaking the rules for, how Eleanor Bergstein was prescient in understanding the precarity of reproductive rights in America during the 1980s, her subversion in making an illegal abortion the centre of her screenplay, the film’s best lines (I carried a watermelon?), how it models community care in action, how fantastic is its demonstration of enthusiastic consent, why it’s important to be honest in critiquing the pop culture we love, and Andrea also has a VERY controversial take on the iconic pop song that gave her book its title, and SO MUCH MORE!
Listen at Substack or Apple Podcasts.
