Family Relationships in the film Billy Elliot

Context Assignment For Billy Elliot Topic sentence: Different types of conflict often occur within a family. Families are portrayed throughout most films and texts, as indestructible, constantly supportive, and held together by a bond that is not able to be changed or broken. This ‘perfect’ image is unable to be supported in reality. Conflicts that occur between families, particularly between parents and children, are common in today’s belligerent world.

Although, the stereotypical views of the perfect family, lead one to believe these indestructible and constantly supportive relationships are accurate representations of families today. These relationships often evade reality, providing a a tainted view to those in search of the true meaning that is family. A more realistic view of a family in today’s society can be taken from the film “Billy Elliot”. The idea of a single father raising two adolescent boys in a poor household, where the idea that a bond in a family cannot be changed or broken, shows flaw in the idealist view one is led to believe.

Many conflicts between the protagonists in the film, when focusing on the relationship between parent and child at the time of adolescence, it is shown that conflict is unavoidable between a father and son. To disobey one’s family, one requires a a lot of courage. There are rules put in place by the head of the family, these rules help to minimize conflict in the family. However, when these rules begin to be challenged, which is often seen through the time of adolescence, conflict occurs. It can be said that children obey their parents out of fear.

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Fears such as punishment and perhaps even the threat of being disowned often keep children in line. In the film “Billy Elliot” a rule that is heavily enforced by Jackie, Billy’s father, is the idea of gender roles. Throughout the film Billy is faced with enormous difficulty because of the views of society, which helps to enforce his rule, as Billy enjoys participating in stereotypically feminine activities. Billy puts forth a lot of courage to disobey his strict father, with whom he does not a good relationship with until the near end of the film.

Billy going through adolescence, becomes headstrong about his desire to continue dancing and defies his father sparking a far amount of conflict within the family. As most good films have the cliche` happy ending these conflicts were resolved and Billy was able to continue his ambition and express his passion through the art of dance. However not all families have the ‘happy ending’. In fact the disobeying of a parent spurs form their inability to understand the very idea of the issues faced by the common teenager today.

Parents find it difficult to relate to their children, it is due to this difficulty that conflicts can arise. Particularly with female teenagers and their fathers, there are many difficulties, such as the inability to understand the adolescent pressures of being feminine. For a male to fully understand these pressures they would have to go through menstruation and actually look into the female mind. It is very difficult to communicate with a male figure that is almost three times your age.

This is why many young female teenagers are forced into conflict with their fathers. This often is also due to one’s inability to accept this males attempts at understanding. The relationships one has with their parents is often a difficult thing to keep without conflict. The stereotypical image of a family only really, represents a small number of families. In reality if all families where as they are portrayed in films and books, there would be little or no conflict in the family household.

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