Male / female gender roles

Is the Music live? Where are auditons held?
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JTfan
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Male / female gender roles

Post by JTfan »

Another topic in this Forum brought this to mind... The roles of men and women in the society Billy grows up in.

The town's existence depends on the mines and it's the men who go down into the mines. The women are destined to stay at home and be mothers. This is the framework that has been there for years. As Billy grows up though this status quo is challenged. The mines are in danger of closing which means the foundation of the society itself is in danger and with it all the rules and roles and codes that go with it.

Grandma grew up in the old situation. She was married because that's the way it went back then. "Seventeen, that was it, your life ended when you had a ring around your finger". If you were unlucky enough to become a victim of domestic violence you couldn't get out. Grandpa apparently was an alcoholic too and as we know from Debbie, alcholism is still around in Billy's days. Both men and women look for a way out of a situation they feel trapped in - men in booze, women in dancing, as in Grandma's case and also in the message from Mrs. Wilkinson: "outside, our lives are loony and sad but in here we sparkle". But you always end up sober again. No real change is made, it's all an illusion.

And in this environment, where boys do boxing and girls do ballet, Billy crosses the boundaries. This is ofcourse the heart of the story and not only a symbol of following your dreams through adversity but also an obvious example of challenging gender roles.

Throughout all this, the gender division is played out more subtly as well. Michael - just as his Dad! - is a male character with feminine traits. Whereas Mrs. Wilkinson, by her language and attitude, is an example of a female character with masculine traits. And what to think of Maggie Thatcher herself, who has been labeled both The Iron Lady and "the only man in the Cabinet"? She's not really a character in the musical but at the same time, what would the story be without her? She is the opposite of what a "woman should be" in the miners society of Durham and hated for forcing her policies of change on the community. Imagine being trapped in a community and then being forced out of the security it offers - even if it's a bleak kind of security.

The story of BETM is one about people dreaming to escape the life they were born into - and gender is an essential part in that. For most of them though, this change never comes. Billy is incredibly lucky and in fact a unqiue - and lonely - figure.
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jtsw1
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Re: Male / female gender roles

Post by jtsw1 »

Thanks for pointing that out. If you do a google search of "Billy Elliot gender" or something you will find a lot on that topic. It's also very interesting how well it works with the whole emancipation of the working class topic. The boy can emancipate himself from society's boundaries, but his class remains oppressed. Sadly, that's true even today, and that's why Billy Elliot is both a very sad and a very uplifting story at the same time.

The thought of Mrs Wilkinson being a little on the masculine side never occured to me... But you are right.

BTW, what do you think of "Street Billys" - Billys who perform a break-/street-dance-version of "Electricity"? I always thought this undermines (hehe) the show's message a little (Billy suddenly erupting into a dance-style invented by black boys in the US...), and therefore I prefer the ballet-version. (Okay, it looks better as well... ;))
- A. -

- What do I do??
- Follow the others... marching forward to socialism!
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JTfan
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Re: Male / female gender roles

Post by JTfan »

Thanks for your reply. I kind of suspected I wasn't the first one to spot this element in the show 8-)

To be honest I don't know about the street Billy's because I haven't seen one (unless I forgot about it from my one experience in London... ;) )
I'd probably be OK with it since it sounds like they use the breakdance style in a sincere way. Not trying to copy somebody else or trying to look cool. Billy is always about being true to yourself. If the Billy in question is already familiar with it and it suits him it will probably look natural.

Another thing about Grandma's song in terms of the gender aspect is when she sings about her growing up: "Women were women and men, they were men". She knows times are changing already.
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kport
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Re: Male / female gender roles

Post by kport »

JTfan wrote:Thanks for your reply. I kind of suspected I wasn't the first one to spot this element in the show 8-)

To be honest I don't know about the street Billy's because I haven't seen one (unless I forgot about it from my one experience in London... ;) )
I'd probably be OK with it since it sounds like they use the breakdance style in a sincere way. Not trying to copy somebody else or trying to look cool. Billy is always about being true to yourself. If the Billy in question is already familiar with it and it suits him it will probably look natural.

Another thing about Grandma's song in terms of the gender aspect is when she sings about her growing up: "Women were women and men, they were men". She knows times are changing already.
The music accompanying the 'street Billy dance' is quite difference. It sets an entirely different mood that makes the dance style appropriate. In its own way, it works as well as the ballet style. There is no reason to disbelieve that a contemporary Billy would not be in tune with street dance. The irony is purely historical: street dance did not really exist, in provincial UK towns, in the early 1980s. Unless you mean Morris Dancing.....

Audiences view the show as much a part of today as part of 1984 -quite rightly. The street music makes the street dance relevant.

"Women were women and men, they were men".

This could become a sociological thesis. In a nutshell, she decries ther husband's abuse, but still reveres the 'man'. It is almost as though she is willing Billy's generation to sort it out. She is old, and tired....
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Borrobil
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Re: Male / female gender roles

Post by Borrobil »

street dance did not really exist, in provincial UK towns, in the early 1980s.
I'd really never thought about that, so I went looking for 1980's clips in a similar style to street electricity and can only say how special or rare acro/street type moves were in those days. Although street moves might have shown up on 1980’s UK TV in Fame or the Hot Shoe Show, and the odd Breakdance movie; I only found two classics.
I think either shows the Street type moves did at least exist in that era, if justification were needed:

The audition scene from "Flashdance(1984)" (start 2mins 50sec) https://youtu.be/4lhbst7E0wY?t=170

and with Wayne Sleep from "Song and Dance(~1980?)" :roll: https://youtu.be/3JsFS1Ei3UU?t=4260
(71 minutes in)
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As for the gender thing - The whole show is peppered with references questioning the traditional “British” stereotype attitude to gender, (apart from Michael’s portrayal). I think there are more interpretations than there have been Michaels and Directors combined. The answers are just not there. Michael and Billy are at an age, trying to make sense of it (as are the young actors, which makes it more palatable and real)… and :idea: obviously the REAL WORLD is still struggling with the same issues.
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