I attended a religious school where the bible was always being used to try to tell us who to be and how to live, it was being used to try to teach us what we should find to be right and to be wrong. It was in this very school that I would get attacked by sometimes groups of three to six kids who were older than me just for being tubby, then when I would end up in the head teachers office nursing a black eye I would get told off and told the old bible passage about turning the other cheek and how disappointed they were in me for having retaliated with my own punches. I wasn't an idiot though, I knew the bible was a quiet contradictory piece of literature but I would not have dared point this out at least not until my mother showed me FootLoose, this film and its impact was huge on me. It taught me how to face up to authority in the right way, how to stand up and make your point in a manner where by they couldn't help but at least hear you out.
Now when first watching FootLoose some might see it as just a film about dancing but it is so much more than that, its a film about a new kid trying to find his place in society, in school when this particular society has outlawed the one thing he feels he is good at and that is dancing. You see dancing is frowned upon in this town because they link it to drinking and youngsters misbehaving and fornicating. Those in power in the town council have done this because the local priest has persuaded them that if they stop the dancing they will stop all of these other things and he managed to do it because everyone was scared for there childrens lives due to a death which had happend.
Sounds kind of simple right its a case of ''the old foggies'' just dont get our hip new young thing. Well you could see it in that way, but its also a look at how people in general assign a value to particular activities, for example a punk rock concert can be called meaningless drivel where an opera is seen as being sophisticated, this is what sociologists would call Cultural capital. This is not just a film about a guy standing up for dancing, this is a film about someone standing up for what they believe in, standing up for there right to enjoy there own personal hobby, there form of expression.
What this film demenstrates is how to fight back not with violence or screaming but how to stand your ground using logic and reason, how to debate a point in a calm reasonable manner. If something brings you pleasure then fight for it but not with violence or with anger but with calm determination. if everyone learned to use there words and there reasoning as well as recognising that cultures other than there own have value then the world would be a much better place.
Oh and in the spirit of FootLoose here is a biblical quote ''There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens'' To all of those who were stuck up and had an issue with my likes and dislikes the hobbies I have and had well its time for you to fuck off.
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