Analysis Of Strictly Ballroom

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1. The title "Strictly Ballroom" gives us the idea & impression of very stern & rules in a very rigid & strict environment with many expectations & restrictions. It also implies the concept of very orthodox textbook ballroom dancing which is very stiff & done exactly in a specific way which it's expected to be done.

2. Billy Elliot is set in north-eastern England during the 1984-1985 coal miners' strike, this is very important to acknowledge because it has a great impact on Billy & his circumstances. It is seen that Billy & his family live in the lower income sectors or England where there are no trees or grass & everything looks very dull & grey, also all the houses are very close together, in the neighborhood & time that Billy lives, the people do not seem very friendly or open minded as they are very angry with whole aspect of the mining strike. We know that these people are not open minded because they attack & ridicule the people who are going back to the mines & call them "scabs". This shows that the people are narrow minded & judgmental. This all adds to Billy's struggle as it would be very difficult for him to openly be a male ballet dancer when everyone expects him to fulfill the expectations of doing "boxing or wrestling or football" like his father openly says. It is very evident that because of these people's narrow mindedness, they are very stereotypical of male ballet dancers in thinking that they are homosexual, where as this is not at all the case with Billy & it is a struggle for him to prove that it is possible for a male to do ballet & not be homosexual in any way. Also there is a lot going on around him as his family is very involved with the mining strikes, as both his brother & his father are miners, this...

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...erson & by not doing everything that his parents said he was able to find out the truth which I think, in the end would have made his relationship with his parents much stronger. Billy was very restricted & confined by the expectations placed on him by his family & as well as society & because of this was not able to express himself or find his own personal happiness but through dance he was able to discover who he really is & what he loves & by pursuing it he became a much stronger person, it even enabled him to stand up to his father in showing him how much he loves dance & in doing so also stood up to society & gender stereotypes, this made Billy a much stronger person, throughout the movie it also shows how Billy is able to make a better personal relationship with his father & his brother Tony who he grows closer to as he becomes his own person through dance.

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