Billy Elliot - Summary

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Billy Elliot
Summary


The story and the main character is about Billy Elliot. The film is set in northern England in
the 1980's. The eleven year old Billy Elliot is a happy, positive and responsible boy who lives
with his father Jackie, brother Tony and his confused grandmother in a shabby home. The
whole family lives in a poor existence because of the fact that the father and the big brother is
striking miners during the miners strike 1984-1985.
The father want Billy to like boxing, he pays for his son's boxing lessons because boxing is
something that runs in their family. Dad Jackie is at the beginning of the film quite angry, but
he's really not such a bad man. He mourns his wife Sarah, who died recently. Despite the fact
that Billy is a bad boxer, he continues to do his father disappointed. But one day he sees a
class with ballet dancers, and he falls for it directly. He soon becomes completely committed
to the dance and of the strict but kind ballet teacher Mrs.Wilkinson. She discovers that Billy is
a real natural talent in ballet, and Billy's dream is changing everyone he comes in contact
with. When the father goes to the hall and discovers that Billy is dancing ballet, he stands for
a moment and look at it him, before he turns around and run away. Over Christmas, Billy
learns his best friend, Michael, is "gay". Although Billy isn't, he is supportive of his friend.
Together Jackie and Tony helped to save up money for Billy who travels to London to make
the entrance exam to the Royal Ballet School.

The main similarity between both boys is that they both have a passion and a talent. Both the
film and the book are about a boy called Billy. In the book Billy is younger than Billy in the
film, being eleven where as is in the movie he is between the age fourteen and fifteen. Both
the film and the book are set in mining communities with members of each boy’s families
working down the pits. Billy Elliot’s dad and brother spent most of the film on strike and
County Durham would eventually become a non – mining community.
One issue which the film tackles head-on is traditional heterosexual male abhorrence of
homosexuality. This attitude clearly underlies the shock of Billie's father and brother when
they discover his interest in ballet. They would be even more horrified if they realized that his
best friend was discovering gay tendencies in himself. It is typical of the sensitive direction
that without laboring the point the film indicates by its close that attitudes towards gays
changed radically during the 1980's and 90's along with the industrial landscape.

Identification
Billy’s character is sensitive, tolerant, determined, stubborn, courageous and single-minded.
His attempts to talk to his dad and his brother are rebuffed by men unable to express any
feelings other than anger. But unlike them, he is able to express his emotions in dance. The
unthinking violence of his father and brother make him lie rather than risk confrontation.
When he is forced into confrontation, he is courageous and stubborn. He is initially afraid that
he will be thought a ‘poof’ if he takes up ballet, he is encouraged by Mrs. Wilkinson and
Debbie, but the real strength to challenge the seemingly insurmountable is an intangible
feeling coming from deep within his own being.

Billy in the story is principled, likable, and vivacious with a musical tone in his body. His

mother Sarah who died two years before the beginning of the story was a musician and used
to play on the piano for the whole family. He is a dreamer who has his own ideas about how
to do things and doesn't follow others just because of their authority. One of Billy's most
admirable personality is his courage, a willingness to go against powerful social conventions
just to follow h...