BILLY ELLIOT

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.