CharacterisationFilm Study: “Billy Elliot”

Adjectives that describe Billy

• Sensitive (nana/to music)

• Tolerant (Michael)

• Determined (Dance)

• Stubborn (challenging his father)

• Courageous (up against society/family)

• Single-minded (knows he has to fight this battle if he is to achieve any sort of life for himself outside of the mines)

Inarticulate

- His hopeless attempts to talk to his dad and his brother are rebuffed by men unable to express any feelings other than anger.

- But unlike them, Billy is able to express his emotions in dance.

- The anger/violence of his father and brother and their narrow-minded view of the world make Billy lie rather than risk confrontation.

- When confrontation does occur, Billy is courageous and stubborn.

Billy as a CONTRAST

Billy is sweet and gentle/ Jacky and Tony are violent and aggressive

Michael is effeminate – Jacky and Tony are afraid that Billy might be … Billy is surprised but accepting.

Scenes that define Billy’s Character

First impressions of Billy are reinforced, not contradicted. He is a stable character – the others around him change.

• Tenderness to grandmother• The scene with Mrs Wilkinson in the car• When he shows Mrs W his mother’s letter• His responses to Michael and Debbie’s

approaches• His fumbling attempts to explain how dancing

makes him feel.• Sending theatre tickets to life long friends

Billy is unaffected/undefined by his environment

Billy rejects conventional gender expectations because it simply doesn’t occur to him to do otherwise.

He is unfazed by his father’s jabs at his masculinityHe is unfazed by Michael’s romantic interest.He is comfortable with his own identity to love to

dance, tenderly care for his granny, miss his dead mother, prance around to T.Rex …and to never imagine that his actions make him less of a man.

Billy is a hopeless boxer, is taunted by his coach that the sport is, “man to man combat not a bloody tea dance”

When Billy is intuitively drawn from the boxing ring on one side of the recreational hall to the dancing class on the other, he doesn’t understand why, he just is.

Billy intuitively understands that the old rules of what’s girly and what’s manly don’t really apply – except for in people’s heads.

Jacky

Film is as much about Jacky as it is about Billy.

Most complex character and the one who grows the most.

He is a quick-tempered product of his environment

Embittered and deflated by the miner’s dispute

He is overwhelmed and traumatised by the lost of his wife.

Proud and independent (rejects Mrs W offer of the fare to London.

Conservative and Traditionalist – gives his father’s boxing gloves to Billy to wear

Narrow-minded (Product of his Environment)

He eventually comes around and realised the opportunity ballet offers Billy for a better life than he had, and thus proves his worth as a man and a father.

Billy’s self-assurance has a ripple effect in the family. Binds the family in support. Jacky learns the difference between toughness and true strength (from his scrawny little son!)

Jacky and Tony as CONTRASTS

First scenes, Tony leaving for the picket line – Jacky isn’t ready (suggests lack of enthusiasm/commitment)

Jacky expresses his belief that they are wasting their time – Tony is still confident and defiant.

Confrontations with Mrs Wilkinson, Tony is aggressive, rude and defiant; Jacky is defeated.

Scenes that DEFINE Jacky’s character

Jacky’s confrontation with Tony when he tries to stop him going out and cannot.

Confrontation with Mrs W, he lets Tony take control – he is a defeated man.

Jacky’s decision to go back to work – more symbolic of his fight to overcome his prejudices, see past his bigotry and recognise/support his son’s drive and talent.

Note how Jacky and Billy hold themselves in these scenes to express defeat and defiance.

Mrs Wilkinson“a disappointed woman who carries her cigarette like a weapon”

Initially portrayed as tired, jaded and perfunctory – she goes through the motions with no real commitment or enthusiasm.

Artistically frustrated.

Her tired demeanour transforms itself into enthusiasm and pleasure in teaching when she meets Billy.

In the confrontation with Tony, he accuses her of being a ‘middle-class cow’ – she gives as good as she gets, is as rough and aggressive as Tony.

She understands when Billy does not tell her of his success with the RBS – they helped each other and then moved on. (basic survival in poor setting – as grey and as functional as her sad marriage)

Her reward has been teaching someone talented and seeing him achieve.

Tony

Billy’s brother is violent and aggressive,

A union militant in a battle where the leaders are ‘caving in’

Sees himself as staunchly working class .. And is proud of it.

Art is irrelevant and ballet is a crime against masculinity.

Tony … at the beginning

Shares a room with Billy. Swears at hits Billy for scratching a record. He is smoking dope.

Is insensitive and intolerant = fights with his father and threatens a friend who turns scab.

One of the younger generation of miners whose world is disappearing even as he clings to the traditions and attitudes of the past. He is a hard, outspoken and aggressive young man.

Tony represents what is in store for Billy if he does not escape from this world. Since Billy is sensitive, he would have either been crushed or have to harden himself.

Does Tony’s character change or grow?

• Not really!• He comes to accept that Billy should have a

chance• He shows tenderness and affection for Jacky,

when Jacky breaks down and attempts to go back to the mines.

• The only affectionate word he ever says to Billy is “I’ll miss you”

• Tony is staunchly working class (Blue collar) and sees Billy’s defection to ballet as scabbing against their social class.

Mini Essay

Choose a text where a character undergoes a significant change.

Describe what this change is and why it occurred.

Explain how this change helped you to understand an important theme in the text.