Blog 3 Pei Chien Wu

One of my favorite movies, Billy Elliot, clearly presents an issue of gender expectation of a society. The story is about how the protagonist, Billy, falls in love with Ballet and pursues it with the objection of his father, Jackie and older brother, Tony. It takes place in England in around 1985. There is a miner strike in England and unfortunately, the protagonist, Billy, and his family are suffering from it because both of his father and his older brother are coal worker. From the movie we can tell that Billy has a very masculine family background since there are three males and a grandma who suffers from Alzheimer, (which means, her voice is usually ignored) in his family. Because of the burden of earning live and the lack of femininity in the family, Jackie and Tony are kind of bossy. They seem like don’t know how to express their feelings and thoughts properly but being testy, indifferent and a bit violent to express their care instead. On the other hand, Billy has more feminine characteristics. He is much tenderer and much more sensitive in some ways.

Predictably, Jackie takes Billy to Sports Center to learn boxing which is a very masculine; however, Billy happens upon a Ballet class in the sports center for some reasons. Without letting his father known, Billy joined the ballet class. He struggles at first since it contradicts his father’s expectation on him, and also, his gender role in the society since he finds that except him, all the students are girls. Even his teacher is female. Moreover, girls wear ballet shoes and tutu during the class while he wears boxing shoes and boxing shirts. Billy dares not to let anybody know that he loves ballet and also looks for the books and music of ballet secretly. He pretends going to attend boxing class in front of his father and even practice ballet alone in the restroom.

For the sake of the call of Billy’s coach, Jackie finds out his trick. Jackie was furious to hear it and asks that “why didn’t you do football or boxing or… but ballet!!!?” From the question and furious tone of his father, we can tell that Jackie is freaking out and cannot understand why a “boy” wants to learn a girly thing. Another interesting character is Michael, Billy’s best friend. Michael invites Billy to his house and puts on his sister’s uniform and lipstick. He even kissed Billy in Christmas. Though he doesn’t ask Billy to reply anything, Michael gives all his support to Billy’s dream and demonstrates to Billy that “never be afraid to be yourself” although you seem different from the others.

At the end, Jackie realized the talent his son has got and takes him to the audition of Royal Ballet School. By his ballet teacher’s help and the understanding of his father, Billy makes his dream come true and becomes a famous “male ballet dancer.” Looking back to our society, there are always something we consider a bit “abnormal” such as, a male nurse or a female engineer, however, I think that’s all because of gender stereotype. I like how this movie addresses this problem and provoke our thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im7n8HGOQMs