POSTWAR BRITISH MASCULINITIES

I think its interesting how many of the films we watch in class relate to previous ones. Twenty minutes into the first hour of This is England, right before Combo beats up Milky, the two discuss soul music and how it unites the black and white cultures. Combo’s description of soul music reminds me a lot about the major theme of The Commitments. Jimmy attempts to bring Soul to Dublin and compares the two cultures, “The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin.” Both films use soul music to unite two cultures and they even use the same song in both of the films, Dark End of the Street.

I guess thinking about opening scenes in movies and opening sentences in texts has gotten to me and become permanently imprinted in my mind. The first words in the excerpt for Black Swan Green are “Do not set foot in my office.” This is a rule that Jason (and his sister and apparently mother) are required to follow. I feel like this sentence really sets up Jason’s life to appear rigid, structured, and out of his control. There are so many situations where Jason is a follower of rules and has no authority to change or affect his situation. He can’t go into a room in his own house, he can’t control his stutter, and he can’t say what he wants to say to his friends and family. These are only a few of the many sitations where he has no power at all.

http://www.billyelliotbroadway.com/

Just wondering how they’re going to pull this off.

In today’s class, we talked about Tony’s attempted escape from the police, and how funny it was. At the same time, it was terrible because Billy watches his own brother get beaten down by the police. Since this movie is all about making tributes to older films, perhaps that scene was a tribute to “A Clockwork Orange“. The creepiest scene of this movie is when the protagonist smashes a meter long, phallic-shaped statue into a woman’s face for no reason whatsoever (she dies). This is horrid, but presented in a hilarious manner that forces you to laugh [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAB0WzTnMl4] . It leaves you feelings messed up because you’re laughing at people getting kicked in the face, raped, and killed. So, possibly that’s what Tony’s scene was aiming for in Billy Elliot, but a more innocent version of it.

I know the final scene of Billy Elliot is the scene where he is playing the lead role in Swan Lake.  I had heard about Swan Lake before but decided to do some research about the plot of the ballet and where it came from to see why this particular ballet was chosen for Billy’s final scene.  I know it’s one of the few famous ballet’s where a man plays the lead character, and I find it intereting how a swan, which is usually a traditionally feminine symbol centers around the life of a man instead of a woman.  According to Wikipedia “Having a man in the role of lead Swan puts love between men at center stage, and the naturalistic choreography given to the swan corps discredits the archetype of the swan as a pretty, feminine bird of gentle grace.”  This is obviously the perfect choice for Billy being that transcending archetypes of masculinity and femininity is a central theme in Billy Elliot.  Billy chooses a traditionally and stereotypically more feminine hobby in dancing ballet, going against certain hetero-normative ideals, just as Swan Lake blurs the lines between masculinity and femininity with its central character being a male ballerina.

In mondays class we were discussing the many weird occurrences that go on in the film. Im not sure if we discussed this one but I noticed that after the scene where Tony and Billy’s ballet teacher fight there is another scene where billy is trying to climb and break through walls to escape from the situation. When he runs up the street he dances into a wall and he sits there for a little bit, then his friend Michael calls his name and there is snow on the ground that wasn’t there a few seconds before and Billy all of a sudden has a winter coat on. I found the sudden change of the weather interesting and can mean many things. This scene of him trying to escape and dancing was kind of long,  it can portray how far from reality dancing actually takes him, or how fast time goes when he is in his escape and doing what he loves?

I really like the scene around minute 24:00. We see the true contrast between Billy and the strikers. The boundaries of masculinity are pushed to the limit here because the change in scene is so drastic. At one moment, we see Billy in his ballet class surrounded by little girls and Ms. Wilkinson. It is a serene environment with peaceful piano music playing in the background as Billy and the other girls practice their dance routine. Then in the next moment, we see Billy’s dad and boxing teacher at the strike. They are gathered in a mob-like form to protest a bus-full of people going to work in the mines. The men in the crowd are dirty and loud miners who portray the traditional image of masculinity; they are being physically restrained by the police, which plays up the idea that men are extremely physical. Both the visual scene and the audible sounds are also darker than what we see in the gym. There is less light and there are police sirens blaring in the background.

When the film started, it reminded me a bit of “Kes” with the dysfunctional family and the impatient older brother. Fortunately, it was almost Disney-like. Interestingly enough, even though it deals very overtly with the definition of masculinity, all the lead characters names can be used interchangeably for women– tony, jackie, billy. The only person who has an undoubtedly masculine name is Micheal, and he’s a homosexual (or possibly I misunderstood what he was saying). Perhaps it was a coincidence, or may be these names were given to show how the lines between gender norms can be blurred just like the names.

As I was watching The Full Monty, I kept thinking about what Professor McGlynn was saying about the whole “who does the looking?” When the strippers were on stage, I never would have made the realization that women are still being objectified even though they are attempting to objectify a man when the camera was panning the floor while they were screaming.  When I was thinking about it later, I still couldn’t really think of any films I’ve watched where women were doing the objectifying.  I wonder if that’s even a possibility being that they’re still objectified in The Full Monty, a film that’s supposed to flip masculine and feminine ideologies on its head.  It’s interesting to think about this because if a male stripper is still able to objectify a woman whilst he is doing the stripping, then when would a woman be able to do the objectifying?    The scene where the three women use the men’s restroom and start talking and acting vulgarly doesn’t seem to criticize male behavior but only really makes a mockery of the women themselves as the woman in the ridiculous lime green outfit and tights urinates like a man.  So where exactly does female empowerment lie if it’s not even in The Full Monty, a film that shows men at their weakest and most vulnerable?

So I know we are passed Trainspotting but I just wanted to make a few comments on the film  since I was not able to attend class the day we discussed it. One of my favorite parts of the film was his speech in the beginning and end. I liked how he listed the traditional things people choose in life such as jobs, children, and financial stability. He has no reason to choose any of those things because he has heroine, which to him, makes up for having a successful life. In the end of the film he says he is going to choose life as opposed to heroine, although we do not really know if he is going to go through with that since he has had set backs with heroine throughout the film. As much as I hated watching the scene where he goes into that disgusting bathroom I thought the scene was really important to the film. It showed the lengths Rent is willing to go to get a hit. I had a feeling throughout the film that the baby was going to die, they would walk by her and you would never see Allison feeding or holding her. Her death due to starvation, or what ever caused her death, was unfortunately bound to happen due to her mothers obsession with getting high. I think this scene is one of the strongest messages of the film. Overall, really enjoyed Trainspotting. I felt it was accurate in addressing problems of drug abuse and poverty.