Billy
Elliot is a 2000 British drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and starring by
Jamie Bell.
The main
character, Billy Elliot, is a 11-years old boy who lives with his father Jackie,
his elder brother, Tony and his grandmother. The film is set during the miners’
strike (Jackie is a miner) and their situation is hard: while Jackie and Tony
are in the picket lines, Billy has to take care of his grandmother.
Jackie
wants Billy to learn boxing (following his steps), but he is really bad at this.
One day, he discovers he loves dancing, specifically ballet. It happens when a
ballet class is using the same gym that he does. That gets his attention and he
decides to take ballet lessons with Sandra Wilkinson, the teacher. But his
father doesn’t want Billy to do ballet, so he forbids it to Billy, ballet is
for women, How could Billy do it?. But the little boy doesn’t mind what his
father says to him, he continues taking class with Wilkinson. She thinks Billy
is talented enough to study at the Royal Ballet School, but at first Billy has
to pass an audition, which he loses because of the Tony’s arrest.
A few
months later, Jackie sees his son teaching ballet to his friend, at first,
Billy is in a state of shock but later, the little boy start dancing and
showing his father what he is able to do. His father, contrary to what we can
expect from him, realizes that Billy really has talent. Despite not having
money to pay the journey to London, Jackie decides to sell Billy’s mum’s jewels
to get money and help Billy attain his dream as would his mother.
This film
shows us how gender stereotypes condition children’s life, and how the little
Elliot doesn’t mind it and decides to struggle to get his dream, become a
dancer. Maybe nowadays isn’t as excessive as was a few years back, but it
exists, since we were babies, blue is for boys and pink for girls, balls for
boys and dolls for girls... Why not dolls for boys? We should educate our children
without prejudices, I mean, let them to discover what they would like playing
or doing and support them. It is a thing that we are starting to accept but in
the past it was unthinkable (We can see it in this fragment of the film):
We must strive
for equality and not let women and men were conditioned by roles and
stereotypes that society imposes to us.
In relation
to what I have just said, in the film appear the issue of homosexuality in
Michael, Billy’s best friend, who discovers his sexual identity and he doesn’t
mind what people could think about him.
I think it
is a good film to show us that if we really want to get something we have to
struggle until we get it. Perseverance and assurance are the trick. I want to
mention too, the great soundtrack that has this film.
