I've been a bit quiet on this blog, mainly because I've been working. But I have been still working on a podcast with Natalie Quatermass about art and activism, which you can listen to here. There's some really insightful, and funny, conversations with poets and theatre-makers and Trade Unionists.
I sat down this May Day to watch a good ol' Leftie film, contemplating Pride or Bread and Roses, but went for the live version of the Billy Elliot musical which has been on my shelf for months. If 'riotporn' is a term coined for lefties who love sitting safe and secure at home applauding footage of riots and violent clashes with police, most of Billy Elliot has a similar we're-all-in-this-together indulgence for a romanticised struggle of the labouring man against the powers-that-be. I was in tears twice in the first 8 minutes, suckered in by the cries of "solidarity!" Don't get me wrong, I love both but it did make me wonder about the theatrical manipulation to 'sell' the opening act, rather than inspire action.
Solidarity forever
The song 'Solidarity' from the musical is an absolute hammer of a song, though the staging does frame the police and the strikers as two opposing factions like a Capulet vs Montague face-off, each with their "fuck you" verses and chess board staging. This is often a liberal's trap of 'both sideism'. It's worth remembering one side had the massive resources of a militarised State, and the other were normal men being starved. The Billy Elliot musical is ultimately a commercial product. It may had sympathies with the NUM, the strikers and their communities but some producers somewhere made a whole tonne of cash. The venue where the musical was filmed pay Front of House staff £10.15 an hour, whilst the Real Living Wage for London is £11.05. Once the heart-pumping refrain of "We're proud to be working class / Solidarity forever" has faded, I can't help but ask how this commodification of the class struggle into a ticket-selling product really helps the former mining communities, or those being battered by modern captialism.
It's about our history, it's about our rights
When Billy's Dad, Jackie, scabs in order to get the money for Billy's school fees, his older son, Tony, is distraught. Yes there's a streak of homophobia throughout these characters, but Tony's issue is also ideological. "It isn't about one kid, it's all of us, it's everybody's chance!" he sing-bites to his Dad. "it's everybody's future, it's everybody's past, it's not about a bairn who wants to dance!" For Jackie, he desperately wants to give Billy a chance to escape his working class life and 'do better', egged on by the dance teacher Sandra who calls the village dying. There's the edge of Thatcherism. Thatcher wanted to crush the miners and the Unions not only to economically make the case for a privatised nation at the whim of the richest and the markets, but she wanted to prove anyone could flourish under captialism. Thatcher wanted to break the cycle of men born into mining families working in mines until their songs take over in the name of social mobility and give everyone a chance to do better. Of course it means sod those left behind, sod community, sod, solidartiy and celebrates the I'm-alright-Jack mentality of 1980s individualism.
And this for me is a difficult angle for Billy Elliot, both musical and film. Billy is given a chance to 'get out', to 'do better' in a notably bourgeoisie artform at the London-based Royal Ballet School. Sod the rest of the working class, sod the struggle and sod his family...Billy can climb the ladder. Jackie says "He could be a star for all we know." It's also telling Tony has been dressed in a Che Guevara t-shirt, he represents a more ideological radical Left-wing, one the show seeeeeems to be saying: "Know your place." In the end, Jackie doesn't scab, and it's up to the united community to give "all that we can give."
Flying like a bird
It's a tried-and-tested 'boy done good' story, the hero who strives against the odds, almost a Luke Skywalker or mythic King Arthur. Compare to Brassed Off where the band are all shoulder-to-shoulder at the end, or The Full Monty where the characters are still mostly trapped in their post-Thatcher world, just maybe with a few quid in their wallets after the show.
Now, I'm not saying in the context of the story, Billy should give up on his dreams. I fundamentally believe ballet (and opera, theatre and all forms of art) should be for anyone. If young Billy wants to do ballet, there should be a ballet school in County Durham. If you're sick of your life, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. But there's something strangely off about a show rooted in anti-Thatcher characters ironically pooling all their energy to one individual. The bitter kick is that a scab comes and gives Billy the necessary funds, which seems the boy scrambling on the floor to desperately gather the notes together under a Tory propaganda 'Labour isn't working' banner. Naturally, Tony is broken. Though he is eventually supportive of Billy, he does bitterly remind us all "we can't all be fucking dancers." I actually booed in the scene where dance teacher Sandra advises Billy to never look back and start afresh. That would be the ultimate Thatcherite victory.
A core principle of socialism and working class solidarity is (as the song says): "all for one, and one for all." I'd like to read Billy Elliot as a story how capitalism fucks over the working class and casts us money-making tools. Whole villages are ground down, made extinct as dinosaurs at the mercy of the State. The final scene sees Billy isolated as his community "all go together" back to work, into the mine, unified faceless blots of light in the clanking dark. But a Tory could watch this film and cheer on Billy's 'escape'. They might see the scene of the striker's cheering on Thatcher's death at the start of the second half painting these characters as the bad guys, especially with their frequent homophobia. I think the push-pull between these stances is interesting for these characters living in dire circumstances, though sometimes the messaging did make me squirm in my seat.
It's made me relfect on working in the arts, a middle class institution, and what it means to come from a working class background, still have fuck all money and try to be true to my roots, values and anger. Solidarity forever.
