The first heated discussion I ever overheard between my parents was about whether or not I had noticed Patrick Swayze’s ass in Dirty Dancing. My father was all worked up, saying that, at 7 years old, I wasn't old enough to be watching the movie. He was also concerned that I was watching Dirty Dancing All The Time. In response, my mother was less concerned. She argued that I was just watching it for the dancing, that I didn't care about the more mature content in the movie. It took me years to realize that Penny had an abortion, that anyone at all was doing anything more than making out and that any man who joyfully recommends The Fountainhead is a huge red flag. The one thing I did know as a kid was that I loved Patrick Swayze.
I loved his dance moves, his beautiful wavy hair, the way he looked at Baby like she was the only person in the whole world. He was my first onscreen crush—the name I would write on my notebook and then add my own in order to play the kid's paper game True Love. (Unfortunately our names together equaled out to 3 and 2: true love on my end and merely dating on his). But at least I could still use his name for playing MASH with occasional success.
I still remember the day in 2008 when the news broke that he had pancreatic cancer and how bewildering and painful it felt. Falling in fictional love with a character like Johnny Castle at such a young age formed my lifelong foundation of fandom for Patrick Swayze. But it was a quieter fandom. It’s a feeling, a heartbeat. When I was growing up, there was no social media on which to gush about his movies. I had no platform to join fan communities like the stan accounts Harry Styles and Ariana Grande and Timothée Chalamet have today. There was only the poster that my dad wouldn’t allow me to tape to the walls because it would ruin the paint. It slipped off the wall-friendly mounting putty at least three times a week (more if it was humid out).
I'd act out the choreography and lip sync the Mickey and Sylvia scene with my friends. We'd all argue over who got to be Jennifer Grey and finally settle for taking turns. I'd have slumber parties where we watched The Outsiders for the millionth time and swooned over all the actors—but Swayze’s Darry with his stern affection was always my favorite. As I got older, I’d fall in love again with Sam Wheat in Ghost, be confused yet exhilarated by Bodhi in Point Break, and far beyond the innocence of my young adoring crush on Johnny Castle would feel raw sexual attraction for Dalton in Roadhouse (although yes violence is bad but he did it for good reasons!).
When someone in the public eye dies now, they trend on Twitter and other platforms. When Swayze died in 2009, Facebook was young and Twitter hadn't yet reached a wide audience. And while I’m fairly confident that Swayze would have hated Twitter with a passion, I do wish that 10 years ago I had been able to express how it felt to lose someone who I hadn’t even known, but someone who had helped shape who I am today. I can still hear Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me” and instantly feel that emotional rush of the scene between Johnny and Baby dancing together in his room after she basically admits she’s falling in love with him. I can still remember the way my friends and I would squeal when she slowly runs her hand across his ass. But before I even was fully cognizant of how sexy Patrick Swayze could be in a film, I was always struck by the way his characters looked at the people he cared about onscreen. Besides Baby and Molly, the way he looked at Sam Elliott in Roadhouse with such affection and admiration. And the way Keanu Reeves looks at Swayze in Point Break the way we all looked at him. (Dalton walked so John Wick would run amirite?).
Grieving online for a celebrity is the way we pay tribute to the people we've never known—people who we only know on screens and in magazines, but changed us with their art and presence in the world. I was barely using social media when Swayze died in 2009—I know I called my mom first and we just talked about how much we loved him and sadly quoted lines like “don’t put your heel down!” And “I thought you’d be bigger.” But now? I know I would have posted a four-picture compilation of my favorite scenes of his (at the end of Dirty Dancing when he mouths the words of the song to Baby, when he goes running and leaping off the roof to save Emmett in Roadhouse, saying good-bye to Molly in Ghost, when he’s lying out in the sun in the criminally underrated Three Wishes).
There would have been a whole thread of separate tweets about his bromance with Johnny Utah in Point Break. And I would have asked other people to share their favorite scenes and quotes which I’m sure I’d also love. Of course, I'd do a Twitter poll for his best love scene, his best fight scene, his best smile. I would have also live tweeted rewatching some of these movies, although occasionally I still do that anyway. But the difference is that there would have likely been an exorbitant amount of people on the other end of #RIPPatrickSwayze also wanting to talk about the same things. I know that the hardest part about grief is having displaced emotions and I think when someone we love in the public eye dies, social media often becomes the easiest place to put those feelings, even by just collectively admiring great pics from an old photoshoot or red carpet premiere.
When fandoms grieve online there’s often a mixture of policing the grief that ranges from “get a life you didn’t even know them IRL” to “you’re not a real fan if you only know they’re most popular songs/movies/shows." So, in some ways maybe it’s best to have avoided that fray 10 years ago. But, it still feels like he didn’t get the sendoff we offer in abundance currently for a pop culture icon. And the way that we dreamcast films and TV shows sometimes depressingly noting that someone like Heath Ledger would have been perfect for something I also wonder what additional movies and TV shows Swayze would have been a part of had we not been robbed of him so soon. Obviously he’d have been in the The Expendables but in this day and age of remakes and reboots do we even doubt for one second that there would have been another Roadhouse with him coming out of retirement for another small town bar that’s become overrun by Proud Boys? Or one of the dads in Mamma Mia, and doing an award winning guest star turn on Justified?
It’s ok to genuinely feel grief when someone in pop culture dies. It’s cool to remember them and what they did and post pics and talk about it. Someone you enjoy watching onscreen or who makes music can have an indelible effect on your life. And when that person is gone, it is still a great loss. I felt, and still feel, so much joy watching Swayze onscreen. He was the embodiment of so many romantic fantasy (and coordination fantasies since I can’t dance). He also exuded so much emotion in his facial expressions like his eyes, when he slightly tensed his jaw. Those are all things I’m allowed to say and revere and miss. So this is my belated love letter to Patrick Swayze since I didn’t get to do it 10 years ago. In the end, I do think Dalton had it right. Pain don’t hurt. Losing Patrick Swayze did.
