I don't believe BILLY ELLIOT was meant to be a movie about a gay teen coming to terms with his sexuality in a mid '80s mining town -- it was meant to be a film about a boy from a working class background with an artistic passion, not a sexual passion.
To clarify this, the film-makers gave Billy a platonic friendship with Michael who is gay. Billy rebuffs Michael's advances, but clearly accepts his friendship and accepts the fact that he is a cross-dresser -- accepting his friend for being different just as his friend accepts HIM for being different ("dancer boy").
I agree with the writer who wrote that Billy's violent outburst in the changing room had less to do with homophobia and more to do with class differences. When the posh, upper-class boy tries to comfort him after we have earlier heard him brag that he has been auditioning for the ballet for two years, Billy feels patronized (in the same way Billy's father felt patronized when the dance teacher offered to pay for the trip to London). It is ironic that, in his disappointment, Billy reverts to the working-class "boxer" his father wants him to be. And so he uses the same homophobic language he has heard his father and brother use when he attacks the boy.
Finally, I'd like to express my disgust towards the writer who seemed to find veiled gay references in the doctor's examination and in Billy's re-connection with his father.
First - The Royal Ballet is both a dance school and a boarding school. If they are going to have children living there, they have to know that the children are healthy. And if they are going to have the children dance for 4-6 hours a day, they have to know that their posture is good, their spines aren't curved, their bones are strong and their muscles and ligaments can endure the kind of rigorous punishment of dance training. For the writer to have seen anything other than a physical examination in the scene tells us more about the writer's own perverse titillations. There is nothing sensual about a shirtless 11 y/o boy bending at the waist for a posture exam unless YOU find it sensual.
Next, in the dramatic arc of the father in the story, he goes from being a cold, heartless working stiff who has literally destroyed what little music there is in his son's life (by chopping up the mother's piano and burning it) to supporting his son and doing anything to get his boy out of the mining town. The scene you are referring to happens at the end of the movie, after the father has succeeded in getting his boy out of the mining town. It is the first time in the movie we see the man succeed at anything. It is the first time he is able to be joyful. He has something to be proud of, and at last has a chance to express it with horseplay with his son. It is the only time we see him act like a traditional father. Earlier in the film he couldn't even be bothered to teach his own son how to box -- he had to pay 50 pence to someone else to do that. Now we see him actually interact. I also thought of this moment as a reference back to his earlier lines in the movie where he says "boys don't do ballet -- they box...they wrestle". I though maybe he was referring to his OWN childhood, and by wrestling a little with Billy, he was reliving a bit of his own past. Shortly, we will see him locked into the cage of the mine elevator, slowly being lowered into the darkness. The moment with Billy might be the last time he has to play with his son in the sunlight. Once Billy leaves he will be losing both his son and his sun.
I totally agree with this post. I think that the film is trying to prove the stereotype wrong that all dancers must be gay as there are many times in the film that allow us to decide whether he is or isnt gay. Many people on this board think that because the subject of his sexuality is touched in the film and because he is a ballet dancer, he must be gay.
It is especially hard for a boy in the 80's to do ballet without being called a poof but i truly believe that the film is trying to pove that Billy isn't gay.
For instance, when Michael cross dresses, Billy doesn't join in, he doesn't laugh at him either, because he is Billy's best friend and it is also harsh as Michael thought that Billy was gay as he did ballet, but Michael just came out the closet and may not have been ready to to a straight person.
Again, when michael says do you get to wear a tutu, Billy says 'no there just for lasses' in a way that did not say that billy wanted to wear one. Later, when Michael dances, Billy gives him a tutu, but doesn't want to wear one himself, because he doesn't feel the need to wear one, he likes the dancing, but not necessarily acting 'poof'.
When he kisses Micheal goodbye, he knows that michael loved him so he was giving michael something back, and also it was just as an act of friendship as he would not be seeing Michael again for years.
When Debbie asks if he wants to see her fanny and he says no, it was maybe a way of showing that Billy doesnt have to look at it to prove he is not gay. But when they are on the bed, i think there is more attraction between billy and Debbie than with michael.
Also when Billy is at the dance school, i think he punches the boy because he is annoyed that everyone pressumes he is gay because he does ballet, and he is slightly angry because the boy is from a upper class background whereas Billy's family had to work very hard through the mining strike to enable him to audition. He is homophobic towards the boy as he may be auditioning as he likes to dance, not because he is gay, and when he punches the boy, he still has that masculine tendancy to punch him when he is angry(i'm not being sexist).
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