Billy Eliot’s Struggles with His Identity in The Film

How do we define identity? Identity concerns what it means to be you. It is shaped by several aspects. Family, friends, interests and the surrounding environments and cultures are all factors that shape a person’s identity. While a person ages, they are affected by all these factors. Family, culture and the surrounding environment may affect a person's integrity, morals, and the sense of responsibilities, while friends can influence their interests and humour. These factors can equally affect the same elements and are not static. As an example, both influence their interactions with others. Depending on the factors in play, they will impact people differently. In the movie Billy Elliot, we see how an eleven-year-old boy deals with his identity in terms of masculinity, class, and culture.

Billy Elliot deals with the subject of masculinity through the art of ballet. When looking at how we popularly think about dance we may find the first thing we think about is not male ballet dancers. That is the big struggle in the story and is what drives the story forward. The society we encounter in this movie does not typically embrace a young boy's decision to start with ballet when his family are boxers. The fact that they are creates pressure on him to become more masculine in people’s eyes. So, when his dad Jackie Elliot finds out that Billy has been skipping his boxing lessons and has been going to ballet instead he is furious. He reasons that Ballet is for “poofs” and that boys should be doing other things like “football and wrestling” (Daldry, 2000). Here we see a big contrast between Billy and his family. Unlike his father and older brother, Billy sees ballet as something empowering, liberating and boundary-breaking and is his way of showing his masculinity and expressing his emotions.

Billy Elliot also deals with the subject of class and status. We see this throughout the movie in his family and environment. His family are by tradition miners. His dad and older shows this through their work and hatred towards the 'scabs'. The mineworkers, who proceed working despite the ongoing strike. Therefore, when Billy decides to perform ballet. He creates his identity and breaks out of the expectations of his family and breaks the family tradition of being a miner. Typically, we see mining as something manly and something related to lower classes. Due to this, his decision challenges his class by attempting to do something else. It breaks some of the norms in the culture and strengthens Billy's identity. Instead of doing what someone of his class is expected to do, he does what he wants to do himself and behaves independently of his status and class.

Furthermore, Billy Elliot deals with the subject of culture. It does this through many of the same approaches as it does with status and class. The culture seen in this movie does not typically see people associate strongly among people of other classes. The film shows us this in a scene when Billy's dad Jackie Elliot meets his ballet teacher Mrs Wilkinson (Daldry, 2000). In this scene, Jackie gets aggressive when talking to Mrs Wilkinson. This happens because she is of a higher status than him. It shows us that the different classes meet they might have some aggressive feelings towards each other. In addition, it shows us that the culture here is divided. This affects Billy's identity by having him stretched between two separate cultures. On the one hand, he has his family, and on the other his ballet and the people encompassing it.

Finally, when we are to define one's identity, we cannot give a final and definite answer. As shown in the movie, one's identity continues to shift and evolve throughout our lives and is not constant. It changes alongside with outside factors. If one's family, friends or environment changes, they may change with it. The movie shows us Billy Elliot’s struggles with his identity through masculinity, culture and class. It gives us an insight into how a young person might react when his own wishes and interests contradict the norms of his society and his class.

References

1. Daldry, S. (Director). (2000). Billy Elliot [Motion Picture].
2. Heshmat, S. (2014, December 8). Pscychologytoday. Retrieved from Pscychologytoday: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201412/basics-identity
3. Keating, R. (2018, November 8). portfolium. Retrieved from Portfolium: https://portfolium.com/entry/masculinity-and-dance-in-billy-elliot
4. Unknown. (2019, February 5). Wikipedia. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_formation