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For me, feeling good isn’t just running away, it’s fighting. Looking something you care about in the eye is submission. It is about empowerment, courage, hope. I’m a fan of coming-of-age movies, the idea of trying to be the person you want to be for the rest of your life, and no movie hits home like that for me. Billy Elliot.
A low-budget drama appeared in video projects and premiered in September 2000, a few weeks after my fourth birthday. The film, set in County Durham in 1984, focuses on Billy (played by Jamie Bell), the younger brother of Tony, who is a miner, along with his father, Jackie, who is a widower. Billy is 11 years old and a reluctant boxer who is attracted to Sandra (Julie Walters) and her ballet classes, which take place in a boxing gym where their studio is used to feed the miners. He knows that this dream is not for boys like him, and he is very disappointed with how his older brother and his father will respond to his new passion, but the smoking Sandra sees natural talent (and determination) in Billy and helps him to try out at the Royal Ballet School in London.
I agree with Billy a lot: I grew up in a working-class area of south Wales, and my art was different from the idea of what it meant to be a man there. I have to be clear, there is a misconception that Billy Elliot is a film about queerness. Billy’s best friend, Michael Caffrey, tells Billy about his homosexuality and the joys of wearing women’s clothes, but Billy is gay.
In addition, this film is about the courage to be the person you want to be, by leaving the classroom or in group meetings, expressing yourself honestly, without telling yourself how you should have been in the place you were born. These things are why this movie means so much to me. I’m a cis-heteronormative teenager, but I come from a place where being a writer, with artistic and academic interests, expressing myself through clothing, often in relation to emotion, writing music and poetry, is all considered normal. As a 16-year-old wearing a halter top on a polo shirt, Sta-prest trousers, loafers and a heavy wash of eyeliner walking into a rugby club, you can imagine the “boredom” I experienced, which often bordered on homophobia at times, for no other reason than ignorance.
And yet, I had a loving childhood. Like Billy, if I’ve been there to be alone, even if I’ve felt the need to leave to do so, the support always outweighs the opposition (especially in my eyes). Especially from family, even if, like Jackie, they were reluctant at first it was because of the security of their country, not hatred of other ways of life. I’ve had a miserable family at the table waiting for my results, walking the corridors and conducting interviews; waiting in buildings larger and more expensively decorated than anything he had experienced before to see if I had the chance to follow a dream.
This is a very special privilege, and I often appreciate it to the point of embarrassment. A kind of survivor’s guilt for those who may not have been given the opportunity to be who they want to be. Like Billy’s grandfather. I’m not saying that to say that I deserve praise, I’m saying that when I see a film crew showing how good things are, it fills me up, it makes me cry, and it reminds me that I’m loved and that I’m allowed to live this life the way I choose.
This is probably the reason why I come to this film so often in live adaptations. When I need a hug from the world, I always look to Julie Walters, a young smoker. Jamie Bell dancing on the table, a heartbroken family is doing what they can to help their children. This movie makes me believe in myself. The movie lets me know that I am loved, and that we should always strive to live the life we want to live.
