2013

2012- How have your perceptions of belonging and identity been influenced by the texts you have studied?
Belonging is the connection between people to groups, places or community. There are many ways that help people to belong and identity is a very important perception that allows people to feel the sense of connection with the world around them. The film “Billy Elliot” is directed by Stephen Daldry, the drama ‘Educating Rita” by Willy Russel and the short story “Saints and heroes” by Gillian Bouras convey the idea that people are struggling with social cultural expectation to recognise their identity, the potential to challenge the social cultural expectation can help people to find their identity and the encouragement of other people can help individual to overcome the social cultural expectation in order to find their real identity.
Firstly, the idea people are struggling with social cultural expectation in order to recognise their identity is conveyed in the film “Billy Elliot” directed by Stephen Daldry. In the film, gender expectation between boys and girls that exists in society where Billy is living “Boys do football, boxing, girls do ballet” has created the harsh attitude toward what the boy and the girls should do. It is proved when Jackie forbids Billy from dancing when he finds out Billy is doing ballet instead of boxing “it’s for losses, no more boxing, no more ballet”. The uses of harsh tone and aggressive voice of Jackie highlights that Billy is a boy and he must not dance. This emphasises the lack of acceptance of Jackie to Billy’s choice. The big conflict in their family is also shown in the scene Mrs. Wilkinson comes to Billy’s house and pursued Jackie to allow Billy to attend in the Ballet competition. Stephen Daldry uses full shot when Tony places Billy on the table and tells him to dance also close up to Billy’s face at that time to show his stressful and angry expression. This emphasises the sense of isolation and confusion of identity...