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"Billy Elliot": the worship and caging of the artist
By Amanda Caldwell | We recently watched "Billy Elliot" on DVD. It's another of those movies we'd wanted to see but that never made it to Griffith, Indiana, whereas such treasures as "Red Planet" and "Dude, Where's My Car?" did.
Fortunately, I managed to know only the bare bones of the plot and a general impression that the film was liked. In case you, too, know only the slightest summary that there's a boy from an English coal-mining town who should be boxing but wants to dance instead, I'll add that the community -- not the least of which being his father, brother and dance instructor -- bands together to send 11-year-old Billy off to the Royal Ballet School auditions in London. There is, taken for granted, a reverence for artistic talent. When his dad and brother think Billy's just being effeminate, they're strongly against his dancing; when they find out he's really, really good at it, they make sacrifices to give him greater dance opportunities.
And the opportunity Billy gets is actually to leave the community that supports him. They save money; they teach him; they encourage him -- so that he can become part of a different community. Any possible glory he earns in the future will shed little reflected light on the village he leaves. Sometimes we know what little towns famous people come from, but do we really care who lives there now?
It's strange, this powerful belief in the superiority of creative people. It's a two-edged sword, though. If you're brilliantly creative, and popularly so, you'll receive fame, money, and glamour, and other people will sacrifice themselves to give you more chances to succeed. If you're somewhat creative, or only obscurely brilliant, people will mock you, underpay you, and try to discourage you into getting a real job. Even if a person like Billy succeeds and becomes one of the few well-known dancers the world has slots for at any given time, his rewards are likely to be selective. I read a book on ballet once and learned that most dancers earn less than the orchestra musicians, less than the janitors who sweep the stage after the performance. And then, there's always the chance that a person like Billy will spends months trying out for the Royal Ballet School and fail; or he'll get in, spend years of his life devoting himself to dance at the expense of other education, relationships, activities -- and then twist an ankle, or never move out of the corps, or discover he hates ballet. He was 11 when he started -- what did he know?
The movie doesn't answer or even audibly raise these questions. But every movie about art and artists, especially a good one like this, works on our assumptions about art and the worth of artists, and challenges those assumptions at the same time.
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