BILLY ELLIOT

Billy Elliot is an 11-year-old boy who tries to grow up in a striking coal mining town at the North of England during the 80’s. While his widower father (Gary Lewis) and brother (Tony) spend their days on the picket lines, Billy goes through adolescence and takes care of his senile grandmother (Jean Heywood).

Influenced by the society of the moment and “obliged” to follow his father’s example, Billy begins to attend boxing lessons at the local village hall. However, soon the young boy realizes that his dream is not to box but to dance. So, during the film, Billy has to fight against the prejudices of the society and even against his own family to achieve his main dream: to be a professional dancer.

The film reflects perfectly the British patriarchal society of the moment in which homosexuality was regarded as a disgrace and young boys were expected to do “men’s things”.  Whenever a boy wanted to do something that was not branded as “men’s things”, he was discriminated and even punished by his social environment. Moreover, dancing has always been branded as “girls’ things” and, even nowadays, boys who like dancing are usually labelled as “poofs”. In the film, Billy, who suffers the consequences of these prejudices, says: “Just cause I like ballet, doesn’t mean I’m a poof”.

Nowadays, we think these problems are not anymore in our society but the real and sad fact is that in their daily routine a lot of people have to be the object of discrimination because of their sexual orientation or just because of the things they like. It’s true that our society has progressed against discrimination but I think we still have big problems to solve in order to achieve a society in which all people could “be himself” without fear.

To conclude, I think the young boy is an example of courage and perseverance because he never gives up and pursues his dream until achieving it. Often, we worry much more about what people would say than about what we really want to do and I think we all should follow Billy’s example and pursue our dreams.