Billy Elliot - a discussion of the film.

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Billy Elliot

The film is set in 1984, and shows the events in the British coal-mining town, Durham, in which 11-year old Billy Elliot lives in. The events are representative of the social chaos caused by Margaret Thatcher's iron-fisted administration. The town's coal miners are on strike, including Billy's father and older brother Tony, and daily confrontations against hundreds of riot police have become normal to see in the streets. , Billy and his friend walk along having a conversation as she casually taps each one of the policeman's riot shields. To add to Billy's problems, his mother is dead, and his grandmother is going senile and is prone to wandering off.

To escape the misery of his working-class childhood, Billy finds a passion for music and dance, often with the help of his brother's LPs. However, the norms and values of the area did not allow for men to become ballet dancers, and any who did were automatically persecuted and assumed gay by their piers. Billy experienced this stereotype from his family and friends who did not approve of it, although his best friend Michael did not mind, as he was actually gay himself. Billy's passion for