A.I Artificial Intelligence
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Brian Aldis, Ian Watson, Steven Spielberg
Starring Haley Joel Osment, Frances O’Connor, Jude Law, William Hurt
Release Date June 29th, 2001
Published February 5th, 2025
Movies don’t change, you do. A few years back I wrote about the 30th anniversary of Dirty Dancing. I had always been dismissive of Dirty Dancing, foolishly viewing it as a movie for girls who wanted to ogle Patrick Swayze’s swiveling hips. Today, I understand how shallow that reading is, while also being old enough and mature enough to understand that there is nothing wrong with having feelings about an attractive person’s swiveling hips and ripply muscles. The erotic appeal of Dirty Dancing is an asset, not a liability. But that's a topic for another Dirty Dancing essay that I should write.
The sweaty, sexy, heavy breathing aspects of Dirty Dancing are the inviting surface covering the simmering politics and polemical deconstruction of 80s era America, stealthily hiding in the heart of Dirty Dancing. Director Emile Ardolino uses pop culture signifiers to deconstruct the myth of Reagan’s notion of America, one of repression and a pining for the good old days of the 1950s when women and minorities had fewer rights and weren’t trying to forcefully change the patriarchal society. It’s all there in the detailed and ingenious subtext of Dirty Dancing. And it took me 30 years to see it.
