Of course, we should tell straight boys they can be whoever they want to be and express themselves however they want.
In another year's time, he may well have wiped it off, or hit his friend, or run away.
Instead, he lets Michael put lipstick on him, and he sits comfortably, chatting about how he’s going to tell his dad about ballet. He knows this is something that would get them in trouble, but not so much that he himself is afraid to give it a shot.
In one scene, Billy finds his best friend, Michael, wearing his mother’s dress and trying on her lipstick. The film is a gorgeous exploration of what it’s like to live in the in-between years of childhood, when you’re at the precipice of hardening. He’s aware of them, but he hasn’t accepted them. But he’s at an age when those rules have not yet solidified in his heart. Billy's family has signed him up for boxing classes, but he insists on dancing around the ring and eventually starts taking ballet lessons in secret.Īt 11, Billy (played by baby Jamie Bell) has already internalized that dance is not something he should be doing. Rex backs scenes in which Billy is euphorically dancing in his room, while the hard punk of The Clash plays over his father's and brother's police battles. The film's musical choices illustrate this even more deeply-gender-bending T. His father and brother are the type of men who can’t imagine Billy growing up to be anything but like them. But that’s precisely why you should watch it again.īilly lives in a coal-mining town in England, during the 1984–85 coal miners' strike. A story like Billy Elliot shouldn’t have to be timeless. While watching it, I was furious that, 19 years later, it's a conversation we still need to have. But it's also a story about how we socialize straight boys (namely, straight white boys) to believe in a narrow definition of masculinity. And it wasn’t that the story wasn’t good-any story about a child discovering their passions and getting to pursue them against all odds is going to make me weep. It's a movie that tells the story of an 11-year-old boy who just wants to dance. I found myself getting upset rewatching Billy Elliot, new to Netflix this month.
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