Thomas Kerkhoven
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
In this article the portrayal of the passage of youth in the film
Billy Elliot by a cycle of Hindu myths regarding the god Shiva
is analyzed. It is argued that the protagonist impels events in the
universe of his mind by ritual dances as he enacts Shiva Nataraja,
the Dancing Lord. The related myths of the burning of Shiva by the
Hindu god of desire, Kama, and of Shiva's burning of Kama then depict
the crisis of adolescence.
Billy's fear of emasculation makes him dread desire and flee into
ascetic chastity. At Christmas Eve, however, he destroys the age of
attachment to Mum in a glorious Tandava dance and exorcises her demonic
death aspect to emerge in the dawn of a new era as the lord of passions.
He thus defends to Dad the Saiva doctrine that desire must be conquered
instead of denied. He comes of age when Dad confers his paternal blessing
on him even in the face of this defiance.
Introduction
The power of myth is exploited to great effect in Stephen Daldry's
film Billy Elliot (2000). Lee Hall's script under Daldry's
direction portrays Billy's developing personality in particularly
vivid imagery from fairy tales and biblical stories, and even more,
from Hindu mythology.
This mythology is brought to bear on Billy's coming of age by a creative
magical realism. In fact, this psychological drama presents the passage
of youth by a clever adaptation of a cycle of intricate and captivating
Saiva (pertaining to the god Shiva) Hindu myths transplanted to modern
day England. The truly excellent English language references Shiva,
The Erotic Ascetic by Doniger O'Flaherty and Classical
Hindu Mythology by Dimmitt and van Buitenen are readily available
and refer to numerous, less accessible, primary sources, often in
Sanskrit.
The Coming of Age and Saiva Mythology
Billy stands in the semblance of the passionate god Shiva, supreme
ascetic and master of eroticism, who appears in certain puranas (medieval
tales) as "boy by illusion" (Dimmitt and van Buitenen, 201) or "young
beggar, of perfect beauty" (Doniger O'Flaherty, 181) rather than as
mature immortal. Shiva's developing relation to the goddess Parvati
(Michael) and Billy's performance of Shiva's Tandava dance of regenerative
destruction then provide an uncannily vivid portrayal of Billy's coming
of age.
The correspondence of the central dramatis personae of Billy
Elliot with characters from the Saiva puranas is presented in
Table 1. The three male Elliots figure prominently as the supreme
Hindu triad of the "brothers" Shiva (Billy), the destroyer, and Vishnu
(Tony), the preserver, together with the "(grand)-father" Brahma (Dad),
the creator, known by his white hair.
The Billy Elliot plot is predicated on a myth that elaborates
the seminal myth that Shiva burns by his ascetic fire Kama, the Hindu
god of desire, in retaliation for Kama burning him with desire for
Parvati first. This mutual burning is due to Brahma's double curse
of Kama for deluding him and of Shiva (as Rudra) for decapitating
him because of the delusion (Doniger O'Flaherty, 30).
The film opens with Billy bothering the world, and particularly Dad,
with Shiva's dance of grief and tears for his departed Mum. The mourning
over Mum's death and the conflict with Dad are expected at the onset
of adolescence in a psychological drama. A quotation from the great
goddess Devi (who is both Shiva's mother and first wife) reflects
quite well how initially Billy's passion for his deceased Mum motivates
his asceticism:
Ever since I killed myself, Shiva has thought of me constantly,
unable to bear his separation from me. He wanders naked, and has
become a yogi, abandoning his palace, wearing unconventional clothing.
Miserable because of me, he has abandoned the highest pleasure that
is born of desire. He is tortured by longing and can find no peace
as he wanders everywhere, weeping and behaving like a lover in distress
(Doniger O'Flaherty, 7).
Table 1: Identification of Dramatis Personae in Billy
Elliot in order of appearance.
| Character |
Hindu Myth |
Further correspondences |
| Billy Elliot |
Shiva (also as Kapalika) |
Ugly
duckling (= swan)/ Prince Siegfried/ Adam/ Jacob/ Jesus/
Billy Casper |
| Tony Elliot |
Vishnu |
|
| Jacky Elliot |
Brahma |
|
| piano |
Kama (desire) |
|
| miners |
Pine Forest Sages |
|
| boxing gloves |
skulls Kapalika |
|
| Michael |
Goddess Parvati |
Billy's guardian angel |
| Debbie |
Brahmahatya |
bride Siegfried |
| dancing girls |
wives/daughters Sages |
brides Siegfried |
| Mrs. Wilkinson |
Arundhati/Kali |
swan maiden |
| Mum (beneficent) |
Devi/Sati/Sarasvati |
|
| Mum (threatening) |
Demon Daruka |
|
| London |
Varanasi |
|
| principal |
Keshava (Avatar Vishnu) |
|
| Michael's companion |
Skanda |
|
| Mrs. Thatcher |
Demon Taraka |
|
Brahma's retaliating curse that Shiva be burned by Kama occurs when
Dad hands Billy over to the boxing trainer who recommends the dancing
girls. Michael's (Shiva's spouse-to-be Parvati) intervention makes
the curse fail and Billy join the dance. The delusional "Swan Maiden"
Mrs. Wilkinson presents the dancing as an abstinent escape from
Billy's passionate nature.
Casting Michael as Shiva's consort, Parvati, the most beautiful woman
in the universe, establishes an intriguingly contorted, very close
correspondence of Billy's coming of age with a cycle of Saiva myths.
It also lends an unusual perspective on the traditional opposition
between Brahma, who wishes mortals to procreate by sexual intercourse,
and Shiva who prefers non-procreating immortal sons (Doniger O'Flaherty,
72 and 22, motif 18). Brahma's position translates to Dad's dismay
over Billy's failure to pursue the dancing girls in the kitchen table
dispute.
Mrs. Thatcher, queen of Puritanism, is the film's demon Taraka
who usurped the throne of fertility god Indra (Doniger O'Flaherty,
30-32) and depicts Billy's fear of emasculation as he becomes subject
to desire. Tony (Vishnu) expels the frigid Mrs. Wilkinson and
his strike shields Billy against the puritan demon's riot police.
Dad and the other miners fail to seduce Billy with the dancing girls
(Brahma's curse) and only come to understand him on Christmas Eve.
Tony as Vishnu, however, offers Michael for Parvati and makes Billy
burn with desire/Kama in the "Town Called Malice" dance as blessing
in disguise (Doniger O'Flaherty, 154). At the mythic level that models
Billy's psychology, this leads to the shedding of the seed that begets
Taraka's slayer, Skanda.
Rebirth from Fire
The burning ground or cemetery is a place Shiva favours for his dance
of creative destruction. The image is that of the famous bronzes of
the god dancing in a circle of fire (Figure 1): Shiva's fire burns
on the funeral pyre and generates the ashes from which new life will
emerge. Billy doubles Shiva in the Tandava Dance of Shiva (Dimmitt
and van Buitenen, 200-201) when he mourns Mum at the cemetery and
literally "howls aloud" (at his disillusioned grandma). Indeed, Billy
reproduces Shiva's Vedic antecedent Rudra, "the Howler," by "howling"
or "crying" up to seven times in the film. Shiva's ornamental (burning
ground) "ashes" (motif 6cd, Doniger O'Flaherty, 22) on Billy's body
in the bathroom also express his mourning.
Figure 1: Shiva Nataraja
The slices of bread shooting out of the broken toaster underscore
the Saiva "Rebirth from Fire" theme. Accordingly, by the ascetic heat
that he generates in lotus position next to the fireplace, Billy incinerates
his attachment to Mum in the wood of her piano that was chopped up
by Dad. On Christmas Eve Billy thus enacts Shiva's retaliatory burning
of Kama and realizes the Saiva myth as he raises from the ashes of
this funeral pyre his passion for Michael exalted by ascetic control.
Next, in his aspect of the newly born Jesus, Billy defies Dad and
comes to command as a tempered internal fire of passion the burning
desire that he initially denied. He mentions this fire when he describes
the Saiva dance-induced trance to the ballet school panel.
Impecunious, meditative, and disregarding appearances, Billy indeed
resembles the passionate and compassionate Shiva, supreme ascetic
yogi and master of eroticism, as depicted below:
On the stony shores of Lake Sipra, Shiva looked every inch the
yogin, but was actually whiling away the time by the invention of
the 84,000,000 sexual postures, of which 84,000 survive, of which
729 are possible and practicable, given block and tackle... (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 175).
By Shiva's ambivalent nature Billy initiates the nocturnal pas de
deux with Michael on Christmas Eve and displays supremely ascetic
control of his passion. Shiva's denials of the enjoyment of sex because
of his position as supreme ascetic figure in Billy's hesitation to
admit his burning adolescent desire for Michael due to his fear of
emasculation. Only the text of "Get It On" and the "...I Believe in
love...", "...I'm burning for you..." and "I hope that you'll forgive
me, if I said something untrue," in the final two title songs explicitly
state Billy's introverted passion.
Billy as Shiva Nataraja, the Dancing Lord
Billy's ritual dance of mourning for his dead Mum opens the film.
He bounces on his bed, in front of an unbounded background of stars,
to the tune of Marc Bolan's "Cosmic Dancer," another name for Shiva
Nataraja, the Dancing Lord. Shiva's dance is recognized as motivating
agent of the entire universe in the Dance of Shiva in the Sky (Dimmitt
and van Buitenen, 202-203):
...the blessed supreme lord began to dance, revealing his supernal
divine nature. The yogins witnessed the lord Mahadeva (Shiva), the
ultimate abode of splendor, dancing with Vishnu in the cloudless
sky. They saw that lord of creatures (Shiva) who is really known
only by those yogins who have mastered the principles of Yoga. The
Brahmins watched the dance of the universal soul himself, the god
who impels the world and who is the source of the universal illusion.
It was indeed the lord of creatures whom they saw dancing, at the
recollection of whose lotus feet one loses all fear born of ignorance...
which also includes:
...You [Shiva] have originated all the Vedas and they will lodge
in you in the end. We behold you dancing, source of the world, lodged
in our hearts! By you does this wheel of Brahma turn....
A furious tapper with an attitude, Jamie Bell, was carefully selected
to imbue the ritual dances that propel Billy's rite of passage with
Shiva's passionate spirit. The film's ballet theme facilitates the
dances and the father-son conflict, but the dance for the flabbergasted
audition panel pales next to Billy's incensed dance of frustration
when burnt by desire for Michael.
Figure 2: Chaturatandava
Dad's intrusion upon Billy's erotic dance with Michael on Christmas
Eve portrays the interruption by Brahmins of Shiva's and Parvati's
love making (Doniger O'Flaherty, 262, 304). Caught in the act with
his passions betrayed by the tutued Michael, Billy defies Dad by dancing
as Shiva Nataraja an ecstatic Tandava dance in which he announces
the twilight of the age of mother fixation by trampling the demon
Daruka (Mum's death) under his tapping feet. He finally achieves the
synthesis of passions and technique that eluded him under Mrs. Wilkinson's
tutelage and emerges in the semblance of Jesus to herald the dawn
of a new era of controlled, flowering passions. Under the burning
overhead lights that depict the halo of flames he assumes the classical
pose with the raised arms and crescent moon hands (Figure 1) and performs
the characteristic vigorous motions and rapid pirouettes as well as
the chaturatandava (Figure 2). Dad is included in the supernatural
dance by the magical circle that Billy draws around him. By this divine
magic Billy establishes a new covenant that celebrates his passions
and reverses Dad to "creating Brahma." The seed that is shed at the
climax begets Skanda (Michael's companion at the "Haymarket"), the
slayer of the demon Taraka (Mrs. Thatcher) desired by the gods
(Dad and Tony).
The furtherance of Billy's coming of age by the dances in the film
is outlined in the following list that includes references to pertinent
Saiva puranas as presented in Dimmitt van Buitenen. The included film
plot summaries are expanded upon later on.
1. The passionate dance of mourning on the bed: Billy
annoys Dad by his continual mourning of Mum (in her death the demon
Daruka) and is sent off to boxing training. At Michael's (Parvati's)
suggestion he escapes to join Mrs. Wilkinson's (Kali's) ballet
lessons, adapted from The Tandava Dance of Shiva (200-201).
Billy's boxing gloves and his prosecution by Debbie originate in the
purana The Skull Bearer (206-209).
2. The passionless dance with the girls: Billy does
not pursue the girls as he obeys Michael instead of Dad and his colleagues,
whose disapproval replaces the fury of Brahmin sages over Shiva's
concept of sexuality in The Sages of the Pine Forest (203-205).
3. Celebratory, clowning dance in the streets: Billy's
advertisement of his new-found means of expression in the streets
from Sunartaka the Dancer (98-200) charms the locals but taunts
society's forces of emasculation and also Dad's concept of masculinity.
4. The "I love to boogie" dance: originates in The
Tandava Dance of Shiva (200-201) and appeases Mrs. Wilkinson to
act as substitute-Mum. The inappropriate, hormone soaked song refers
to the passions Billy must recognize to overcome his mother-fixation.
5. The "A Child is Born" dance: Moving as a puppet to
her commands, Billy receives the spirit of frigid Mrs. Wilkinson.
Tony expels her when he exposes Billy (his sexuality as Shiva's unlimited
linga or phallus) on top of the kitchen table for worship as in Brahma,
Vishnu and the Linga of Shiva (205-206).
6. The passionate "Town Called Malice" dance: Billy
is furious at being burned by desire for Michael in The Dance of
Shiva in the Sky (202-203) on top of the shed. His violent quelling
of desire (penis extraction from "Pine Forest" myth) starts an "ice
age."
7. The Erotic Dance in the Boxing Hall: Following the
raising of an ascetically exalted desire from the ashes of the piano
as in Kamadeva, the God of Love (209-212), Billy applies a
painful, abstinent self-denial in this semi-dance with Michael.
8. The Tandava dance at Christmas Eve: At Dad's intrusion
Billy gives up the inhibited teasing of Michael. In the shedding of
the seed at the climax of his Tandava dance he brings about the twilight
of the age of mother fixation and the dawn of the era of passion.
9. The audition dance: At the principal's prompting,
Billy finally receives Dad's paternal blessing on the trip to London
that depicts The Pilgrimage of Shiva to Varanasi (334-336).
In the bus Billy recommends London as Shiva praises The Virtues
of Varanasi (330-331).
10. The "Swan lake" dance: In the world of Billy's mind
the "swan maiden" is gone and the puritan demon Taraka is slain by
the mythical child Skanda from Karttikeya (185-188), engendered
in the erotic boxing hall dance. Billy openly presents himself to
the world on a stage with exclusively male swans.
Dance as Evasion
Brahma's curse that Shiva be burned by Kama transpires when Dad attempts
to extract Billy from his continual pianistic mourning of Mum to the
tune of "Cosmic Dancer" by handing him over to the boxing trainer.
The trainer, in complicity with Dad, reminds his appreciative pupils
of the dancing girls who enter thanks to Tony's strike. The scheme
is foiled by MichaelÔs intrigue to make Billy sabotage the boxing.
Dad leaves in disgust at the curious dance-like antics that make the
teacher tell Billy to pass the keys (to his masculinity) on to Mrs. Wilkinson.
The dancing teacher enters as the horrifying, destructive goddess
Kali (wearing crescent moon earrings, etc.) from the purana The
Tandava Dance of Shiva where the gods ask Shiva to slay the havoc-wreaking
demon Daruka (Mum's death threatening the Elliot household). Billy
does not pursue monstrous Mrs. Wilkinson's tutued girls, but
continues his mourning by joining their dance. The teacher steps on
his foot and throws ballet slippers in her cigarette ashes that are
ultimately regenerative in the Saiva context (Doniger O'Flaherty,
22, motif 6cd).
Mrs. Wilkinson figures without her Kali ornaments in the double
role of Arundhati, the only chaste wife from The Sages in the Pine
Forest purana (also Doniger O'Flaherty, 102). Insisting that Billy
overcome his mourning of Mum by pursuing the girls, the miners portray
these "fuel gathering" Brahmin sages, whose virulent asceticism is
transferred to the frigid Mrs. Wilkinson. Dad pushes Billy against
the door after the kitchen table scene and portrays Shiva's trammeling
when the sages accuse him of a sexual transgression (Doniger O'Flaherty,
chap. 6). Shiva's flight to Arundhati who cooks jujubes for him (for
twelve years) translates to Mrs. Wilkinson in her benevolent
aspect feeding Billy. In her bedroom, Debbie amplifies Mrs. Wilkinson's
frigidity as the film's Arundhati when she spills the beans about
her parents' non-existent sex life in her failed ploy to arouse Billy.
Although not yet ready to act upon it, Billy is true to Saiva doctrine
in rejecting the teacher's denial of desire by stating that she is
"mental" if she "does dancing instead of sex."
Billy asks Mrs. Wilkinson to act as Mum-substitute by forcing
her to read Mum's letter, but also expresses his uncertainty regarding
this idea by choosing incongruously the oversexed "I love to Boogie"
for his dance. The crowd of additional (sexually initiated) dancers
joining in stems from The Tandava Dance of Shiva and provides
a first call to creation to Dad, who mimics Brahma awakening from
The Cosmic Egg in the ocean at the beginning of time, as he
sits up in the tub (Dimmitt van Buitenen, 32).
A dance with a Mum-substitute cannot resolve Billy's passions, and
he returns home dejectedly. This delay in the exorcism of Mum's threatening
aspect enables it to go on another rampage in the nocturnal hammer
disagreement between Tony and Dad. Billy becomes despondent and angrily
challenges Mrs. Wilkinson. She hits him when she invades the
boy's dressing area in an adaptation of Arundhati's bathing of Shiva
"as her own son" (Doniger O'Flaherty, 102).
The Swan, the Prince, and the Donation of the Spirit
The film modifies the role of sexuality in the myth by the use of
scenes external to the Saiva cycle. In his yellow shirt with flapping
hands as Andersen's Ugly Duckling in the opening episode, Billy at
the onset of adolescence breaks the eggs and emerges headfirst from
the shell. Billy is next portrayed as Duckling who is Swan-to-be by
the swans on the wallpaper and the feathers that fly as he fights
off Debbie's undesired advances in the bedroom scene. A moment passes
when Debbie taunts Billy to kiss her by caressing his cheek, but she
fails to excite his passions and he turns away to the charming words:
"See, you're a real nutter, you."
Soaring over the Tees on the transporter bridge, Mrs. Wilkinson
looks away from Billy as she tries to deflect his charges in the boy's
dressing area. Her version of Swan Lake identifies Billy as
Prince Siegfried, Mr. Wilkinson as "evil magician," and herself as
delusional "Swan Maiden" who desires a son in chastity. She appears
to realize that Billy will not have to share the Swan Maiden's death,
even as he refuses as "young prince" the dancing girls offered as
Swan Lake brides. Tony will save the young yogi, practicing
his lotus position on the hood of the dancing teacher's car, from
her frigid abstinence and the morbid conclusion of Tchaikovsky's ballet.
Mrs. Wilkinson's spell makes Billy embrace abstinence as he
enters upon his first "cycle of women": First, Grandma recognizes
with a scream his possession by Mrs. Wilkinson's spirit. Secondly,
the enchantment dulls the abandonment by Mum. The poison of Mum's
death in her cup of milk is detoxified and Billy can drink it down
as in the "Tandava dance" purana:
This clever boy drank up her (Daruka's) wrath with the breast milk
(Dimmitt van Buitenen, 201) ...
and:
When Devi (Mum) saw this (drinking of poison) she was terrified
and disappeared (Doniger O'Flaherty, 279).
The third woman is Mrs. Wilkinson, seated as creative artist
and commanding Billy as a puppet at the barre. The lack of
motion is compensated by a free camera rotation that is unique in
the film. At the end of this passionless exercise, the focus of the
camera on the parting hands of Billy and Mrs. Wilkinson evokes
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco of the creation of Adam. Mrs. Wilkinson's
(God's) repeated command to "breathe" evokes the spirit that is blown
into Adam's (Billy's) nostrils as she creates Billy in "her own image"
by donating him her own spirit as true "evil magician." This biblical
strand will culminate in Billy's presentation in the semblance of
Jesus on Christmas Eve.
The newly created Adam (Billy) is given a woman (Debbie). The dialog
is ambiguous and Billy's "Who do you think is better..." appears to
ask if boys or girls are to be preferred. Debbie's idiomatic confusion
of "us" and "me" in "You don't fancy us, like" adds to the polyvalence
of the plot. As fourth and last woman of this cycle, Debbie reproduces
the ultimate inability to resist Shiva's erotic appeal of the wives
or daughters of The Sages of the Pine Forest when she
loses all modesty in her offer to show Billy her "fanny," which he
declines disinterestedly:
All the other women, utterly in disarray, pursued Mahesvara [Shiva],
lost in love, their sense burning with desire (Dimmitt and van Buitenen,
111).
Also, with Arundhati portrayed by Mrs. Wilkinson who "funnily enough"
does not fancy Billy in her car as she only wishes a son in chastity:
When the women of the Pine Forest saw Shiva begging in their hermitage
they were overcome by desire. Only Arundhati, the faithful wife
of Vasistha, resisted. All the others, old women and young girls,
threw off their clothing and urged Shiva to make love to them (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 102).
The Sages of the Pine Forest then accuse Shiva of violating their
wives and demand that he extract his own penis as usual punishment
(Doniger O'Flaherty, 181, 203, 211). Their enmity is transferred to
Mrs. Thatcher's riot police whose onslaught appears as a culmination
of Billy's fear of emasculation, and an eviction from the Garden of
Eden (youth, with its endless opportunities).
Billy as Kapalika and Debbie as Brahmahatya
Debbie pesters Billy insistently about sexuality and disappears as
his "ever-faithful washday slave." She continually irritates Billy
and he finds himself once more in her uncomfortably close proximity
on her bed. The annoying Debbie thus reproduces not only one of the
Swan Lake brides, but also the girl Brahmahatya (Brahminicide)
who torments Shiva on his pilgrimage to expiate his sin of Brahminicide
in the purana The Skull Bearer (see also Doniger O'Flaherty,
124).
In this purana, Shiva wears a garland of skulls as Kapalika or "Skull
Bearer" in penance for his guilt of Brahminicide; he has chopped off
one of Brahma's five heads for an ignominious comment. The film's
boxing theme enables the construction that Dad makes Billy wear boxing
gloves around his neck in analogy to these skulls and Dad's reference
to the boxing indirectly by way of these "skulls." Michael's abhorrence
of the "skulls" at the boxing hall entrance reproduces Parvati's insistent
objections to these inelegant accoutrements of her spouse (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 222).
Michael as the Goddess Parvati
The suggestive "Get It On" initiates Billy's awareness of Michael's
appeal and terminates the pianistic expression of his desire for Mum
to the tune of "Cosmic Dancer."
Michael then mimics Parvati disturbing Shiva's meditations (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 222) when he strikes daydreaming Billy on the head in
the classroom. Next, Michael lures Billy to an underground canal that
models the subterranean flow of the mythical river Sarasvati at Kuruksetra
(The River Sarasvati and Kuruksetra; Dimmitt van Buitenen,
327-329). Shiva's vain attempt to cool his burning desire for Parvati
in the Sarasvati (Doniger O'Flaherty, 288]) figures in Billy's flight,
walking through the water, from Michael's rather overt advance. Billy's
subsequent giggle at his "dick head" comment presages his exposition
as Sivalinga (Shiva's erect phallus) on top of the kitchen table.
Billy finds himself as unable as Shiva to cool his burning desire
in the water. Accompanied by the continuing lyrics of "Get It On"
he goes to the library in a modified version of Billy Casper's book
theft from A Kestrel for a Knave (Hines 1968). Curiously, Ballet
for Beginners, A Fully Illustrated Guide for Young Ballerinas
(Medova, 1997) is presented on the upper "not for children" shelf
as the "dirty book" that Billy Casper does not read and that the librarian
prohibits Billy Elliot from checking out. In this attempt to quell
his burning desire for Michael, Billy ironically applies the "Take
me" of "Get It On" to the forbidden "girlie book" instead when he
steals it.
Billy contemplates the dancing girls as sexual partners and immodestly
peeks upward under their tutus in the stairwell. The following studies
from the stolen book closeted in the bathroom are closed by Mr. Braithwaite's
"wanker" insinuation. The girls evidently fail to arouse Billy who
whacks Grandma's book-supporting dentures as a vagina dentata
(Doniger O'Flaherty, 22, motif 17d) out of sight. Billy's dive into
the bathtub (and the arms of frigid Mrs. Wilkinson) reproduces Shiva's
plunge into the water "for a thousand years" in refusal to bring forth
procreating mortals at Brahma's request (Doniger O'Flaherty, 130-131).
Where the girls fail to distract Billy from Michael, he succeeds in
"dancing instead of sex," but repudiates this later on Debbie's bed.
Billy's visit to Michael's house portrays Shiva and Parvati's intimacy
as a married couple and first reenacts an episode where Parvati lets
Shiva wait while she beautifies herself for him (Doniger O'Flaherty,
147). In the unlikely setting of his parent's bedroom, Michael displays
Parvati's disapproval of Shiva's ascetic appearance (Doniger O'Flaherty,
239) when he gives Billy a makeover. Although worried about getting
"in trouble," Billy exhibits none of the hypersensitivity that characterized
his involuntary visit to Debbie's bedroom, as Michael sits next to
him on the conjugal bed.
Tony and the Threat of Emasculation
Mrs. Thatcher as puritan demon Taraka underscores that the film
is a psychological drama by her characterization of Tony's striking
miners as the "enemy within" on the radio. The chorus line of brawling
police and miners figures indeed exactly when Billy needs the protection
against her emasculating forces most. It is interlaced in the episode
that builds up from Billy's gleeful clowning dance advertising his
new skills in the streets of Easington Colliery, to Dad's dismay at
the kitchen table when the dancing girls fail to avert Billy's desire
from Mum.
Tony's intervention ultimately demonstrates to the miners the proper
way to kindle Billy's desire. Thus, both miners and sages come to
agree to the concept of sexuality of the other party. Even if abrupt
and overbearing, Tony is true to his role as Vishnu and unconditionally
supportive. He saves Dad from joining the scabs when he tries to break
ranks. As principal at the audition in an avatar, Tony even gets Dad
explicitly to give Billy the paternal blessing that he craves.
Wrapped in sheets, Tony literally becomes Mum's spectre to defend
Billy on top of the wall against Mrs. Thatcher's riot police
in the raid. Tony next provides the alternative to the dancing girls
that had not occurred to Dad to extract Billy out of his mourning
over Mum's death.
Billy Burning with Desire
Tony gets himself arrested to avert Billy's attempt to auditioning
together with Mrs. Wilkinson and forego the chance still to receive
Dad's blessing at last. Billy's internal struggle all but surfaces
in the film's action when Tony appears to blame Billy's possession
by the frigid teacher's spirit for the puritan demon's raid. Next,
Tony proceeds to deliver Billy to the flames of desire despite his
plaintive "I don't want a childhood, I want to be a ballet dancer."
Tony as beneficent Vishnu intentionally misinterprets Billy and exposes
him (in fact, his sexuality) on top of the kitchen table instead of
at it, as Dad did. The curious focus of the rotating camera ingeniously
exhibits Billy burning with desire as the "flame linga" (Doniger O'Flaherty,
22, motif 5cd) from the myth of Brahma, Vishnu and the Linga [erect
phallus] of Shiva:
... there appeared by the illusion of the supreme god (Shiva) a
matchless linga whose self was Shiva displayed for awakening. It
was bright as the fire of Doomsday, wreathed in garlands of flame,
free from growth and decay, without beginning, middle or end...
Tempted by Michael, the film's Parvati, instead of Dad's dancing
girls, Billy burns with desire as the myth is realized and the "Swan
Maiden's" spell is broken. Tony's command to "dance" (Vishnu Stirs
Shiva from his Asceticism; Doniger O'Flaherty, 154) wakes Billy
from his ascetic trance as he angrily tries to cool his hands and
stamp out his burning desire in the patio. With passion and seemingly
no technique, Billy dances literally "into the closet" and "out of
the closet" to the tune of "Town Called Malice" with its thwarted
passion in the "old love letters" of the song.
Shielding his face from desire's heat, Billy is dragged helplessly,
like a moth into a flame, to the object of desire on top of the shed:
Michael. Despite himself, Billy climbs to the roof and furiously performs
The Dance of Shiva in the Sky. Unable to stamp out the fire
in a wild tap, the enraged Billy with both hands makes Casper's V-sign
to the weed-smoking Tony, who is annoyed at his apparent inability
to exorcise Mrs. Wilkinson's spirit. He becomes all but identical
to Shiva who is burned by Kama's arrows of passion in Kamadeva,
the God of Love:
Then from a distance Kama spied him whose sign is the bull (Shiva),
moaning and groaning. He drew his bow again and straightaway pierced
him with another arrow named Samtapa, or Remorse. Stricken with
remorse, Shiva grew even more aflame, burning in this way, he roamed
around the world hissing and snorting.
Billy hides his face in shame at his inability to resist stripping
for Michael ("clothed in the sky" expresses nakedness; Doniger O'Flaherty,
244). Failing to extinguish desire, he runs off with Michael in pursuit
until he slams into the corrugated metal fence and cannot flee any
further. Billy then desperately simulates Shiva's penis extraction
(Doniger O'Flaherty,132) to escape from Kama's burning desire. His
elbow and feet backfire into the sheet-metal fence in the ferocity
of the act.
The lines "the ice age is coming" in "London Calling" and "the atmosphere
is a fine blue ice" in "A Town Called Malice" presage the change from
bright and sunny to snowy weather that accompanies the auto-mutilation
in the myth and reflects the chill in Billy's personality:
When the sages have cursed and reviled Shiva, the sun gives no
warmth, fire no light, and all is plunged into darkness (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 92).
And with emphasis on the blinding (Oedipal) mother-fixation in:
Then with a curse the sages caused Shiva's linga to fall. The fiery
linga stretched for many miles and landed in the body of Sati (Mum),
but when it had plunged into the ground its divine energy was withdrawn
from the universe, and the world became dark (Doniger O'Flaherty,102).
Billy's dance around Michael on top of the shed furthers the plot
at the biblical level by echoing Jacob's struggle with the angel before
is allowed may enter the Promised Land. Like Jacob, Billy hurts his
leg in the struggle (when he jumps down the roof). As suggested by
his enigmatic "ark" comment at the boxing hall entrance, the "hubcap
diamond star halo" text in the tunnel and his name, Michael, replicates
both Shiva's consort, Parvati, and Billy's guardian angel. Michael
as sexless biblical angel clearly cannot generate the all-important
burning desire, but does provide an allusion to the Shiva-Parvati
couple as the single person androgyne (Doniger O'Flaherty, 22, motif
32e),
The Sublimation of Desire
The immediate change from sunny warmth to snowy winter in the Saiva
myth depicts the psychological reality of Billy's violent quenching
of desire. The film struggles to adhere to the rules of magical realism
in portraying the myth and leaves unresolved how and where the friends
got into their winter coats. The chill in Billy's mind remains inseparable
from the Christmas freeze that makes Dad chop up the piano for a warming
fire, i.e. curse it to be burned by Shiva.
At the biblical level, Billy Elliot presents Billy as Adam
in the Donation of the Spirit and as Jacob in the Struggle with the
Angel and thus recapitulates Luke's genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23-38).
Billy's pose as the newborn Jesus at Christmas Eve then projects him
as the driving force behind the Christmas Event that motivates Dad
to chop up the piano.
Shiva's retaliatory burning of Kama by ascetic fire is discussed
at length in Chapter 5 of Doniger O'Flaherty:
In spite of his anti-erotic reputation and sentiments, Shiva ultimately
acknowledges the power of Kama. ... Shiva burns Kama but is nevertheless
sexually aroused: Shiva burns Kama only to revive him more powerfully
(Doniger O'Flaherty,145]).
In accordance with the Saiva Rebirth From Fire theme, Billy
sublimates his uncontrolled infantile desire for Mum, and raises his
tempered passion for Michael as the invisible "bodiless" Ananga, from
the ashes of the wood of Mum's piano. Indeed, when the young yogi
burns by his ascetic fire the piano/Kama in the fireplace at his (semi)
lotus feet, Michael arouses him later on outside. Mum's nocturnal
drink of milk of childhood is exchanged for the cider (eviction-causing
apple) of adulthood, and Billy's fury when burned by desire is replaced
by Shiva's passion in an eroticism perfected by ascetic control.
The psychological/mythical level of the plot surfaces again in the
innuendo in Billy's text line: "tastes like piss" after drinking from
Michael's "woodpecker" brand bottle, and the rejoinder: "you get used
to it." Billy installs, highly suggestively, the offered bottle straight
up in the front of his coat and parallels Parvati's retrieval of Shiva's
linga in some versions of the myth (Doniger O'Flaherty,134). With
thickly piled double meanings the script adheres closely to Saiva
myth:
Overcome with passion, he [Shiva] places his hand inside Parvati's
garment and moves it around until she draws away in shame (Doniger
O'Flaherty,145).
Billy's "my hands are freezing," and his angelic smile can indeed
be considered as foreplay to the suggestive dance in the boxing hall
where he continues to lead Michael with expert erotic teasing. This
interpretation does justice to the myth where Shiva (refusing ever
to admit to the enjoyment of sex) precedes Parvati to a love making
session that lasts "1000 years" (Doniger O'Flaherty, 263) and from
which he is pulled only by an interrupting group of Brahmins (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 262, 304).
Billy's Tandava Dance in the Twilight
The gods want Parvati to seduce Shiva to shed his seed, so that the
couple's son Skanda may slay the puritan demon Taraka. Impatient when
by his ascetic control of passion Shiva has still not shed his seed
after 1000 years of love making, the gods end up interrupting the
couple's intercourse. Only this disturbance makes Shiva shed his seed
and part of it is carried off in the mouth of the interrupter (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 96-99, 263-265 and elsewhere).
Dad thus interrupts Billy's lengthy dance of distressingly inhibited
eroticism with Michael in the boxing hall. Parvati's rearrangement
of her garments in shame at Brahma's interruption (Doniger O'Flaherty,
304-305) occurs when Michael removes the tutu that betrays him to
Dad as Billy's "girl."
Dad mimics king Ila who sees Shiva's nakedness in a variant myth
(Doniger O'Flaherty, 305) and covers his eyes in despair as he finally
understands his son. The abuse that Billy expects does not materialize,
he takes heart and synthesizes passion and technique in Shiva's Tandava
dance in the twilight (hence the daylight in the background) of the
era tormented by Mum's death.
Only by defying Dad in the assertion of his true self does Billy
finally destroy the era of mother fixation and exorcise the demon
Daruka. Here he creates the era in which he internalizes the passions
that he suppressed in the foregoing dance with Michael. At the end
a good frame-by-frame facility on the playback equipment reveals Billy's
arms rapidly outlining the shape of a body sized Sivalinga as the
dance climaxes with the shedding of the seed, portrayed in the raised
right arm. In the myth, Brahma receives Shiva's seed in the mouth
as the Saiva enlightenment, and indeed Dad's mouth is still open when
he turns around to face the camera.
The timing at Christmas presents Billy in the image of the newborn
Jesus, another expert exorcist even if not a dancer. The dawn of the
"new enlightened era" of passion that is created and the twilight
of the era that is destroyed are then both portrayed by the daylight
shining miraculously through the windows in the background in the
middle of the night. The biblical level at which Michael's applause
reproduces the blessing of Jacob's angel is here tightly interwoven
with the Saiva myth.
The Miners' Enlightenment
Brahma's pride is broken in Vishnu's arms (Doniger O'Flaherty, 51)
when Dad cries on Tony's shoulder as he is saved from joining the
scabs for Billy's sake. The heap of coins and Mum's jewels that facilitate
Billy's journey instead depict Shiva's golden seed that Agni (the
fire, who in many versions of the myth receives Shiva's seed) returns
to the gods. When the gods become pregnant with the seed, Shiva tells
them to vomit it forth into a great mountain of burnished gold (Doniger
O'Flaherty, 99) reflecting the Saiva enlightenment. Dad's spitting
all around him before he reenters the mine (included on PAL VHS tape)
reenacts Agni's spilling of the last remaining seed that still bothered
him (Doniger O'Flaherty, 96).
Billy's Romp with Dad
Dad appears to appreciate his son's courageous defiance when he sits
down on his bed, but he has not yet come to terms with Billy's true
self. Billy still has to reproduce Shiva's Pilgrimage to Varanasi
(modern-day Benares) to expiate the sin of Brahminicide that is implicit
in the defiance. Indeed, Billy will receive the paternal blessing
on the trip to London where Dad accompanies him in analogy to the
skull that remains attached to Shiva's hand as a reminder of the Brahminicide.
Appropriately, Billy does experience the visit to the ballet school
as a penance.
Shiva expiates his sin by visiting Vishnu's avatar Keshava on his
pilgrimage to Varanasi. This pilgrimage enables the film's principal
to acquire as Vishnu's avatar the authority that Tony lacks. He chides
Billy for his immature "bent bastard" scene, but also blatantly exceeds
the ballet theme when he intervenes and demands that Dad no longer
withhold his blessing in the "You are completely behind Billy, are
you not?" Dad's "Yes, yes, of course," then finally bestows on Billy
the craved-for blessing. The principal highlights his (mythical) identity
with Tony when he annoys Dad in retaliation for the nocturnal punch
on the nose with the parting shot, "Good luck with the strike."
Although Billy Elliot can pass the boarded up cinema that portrays
Billy Casper's paternal abandonment in A Kestrel for a Knave
(Hines 1968), he still hides from Dad to read the acceptance letter
from the ballet school. But, when his colleagues remind Dad of the
discontinuation of Tony's strike, this indicates that the pilgrimage
has been successful. Dad's blessing is confirmed when father and son
can both admit to being "scared" and even embrace each other in the
romp on the grave where Mum finally rests in peace. Correspondingly,
Billy ends up on top.
This commences the second "cycle of women." After Mum's burial, Billy
says goodbye to the repressed sexuality of the uptight Mrs. Wilkinson,
whose spirit he has effectively exorcised, and emphatically passes
over Debbie. Grandma as third woman embraces Billy as compassionate
Shiva now that she recognizes him again as true to himself. Finally,
the fourth woman is not the girl in the street, but rather, at the
very last moment, Michael. Supported by Dad's blessing, Billy is now
able to kiss Michael under the observing eyes of Dad, Tony and the
whole neighborhood. The farewell is closed by a presentation of the
triple world (earth, atmosphere, heaven) of Hinduism (e.g., Dimmitt
and van Buitenen, 24), with Billy in the upper register.
The Demise of the Puritan Demon
At the "Haymarket" only the most central characters remain: In the
audience Dad, Tony and Michael, the latter dressed as woman together
with a dark skinned companion. This final scene reveals an altered
psychological reality when Billy portrays the ending of Andersen's
tale by dancing on the stage openly to the world as member of an exclusively
male cast of Swan Lake. Correspondingly, the Swan Maiden is gone and
the puritan demon Taraka has been slain in its aspect of Mrs. Thatcher
as she and her party are out of office.
The purana Karttikeya then suggests that Michael's companion
impersonates Skanda, the slayer of Taraka, begotten from the seed
that was obtained when the lovemaking of Shiva and Parvati was finally
interrupted. Part of this seed was carried off by mouth and deposited
in a thicket of reeds in the Ganges. The posing of Michael's companion
as Skanda, raised from the seed in the thicket, is unproblematic in
this context because the myth avoids carefully any pregnancy of Parvati
in the origin of the "mind born" Skanda (Doniger O'Flaherty, §VIII.D).
Conclusion
As Billy is forsaken by Mum at the onset of adolescence, his fear
of emasculation makes him flee into ascetic abstinence instead of
transferring his passion to Michael. Billy only exorcises Mum's progressively
demonic spirit when he defies Dad in his emergence as lord of passions
in the creative/destructive Tandava dance at Christmas Eve. Thus,
he conquers rather than denies the burning desire, as laid down in
the Saiva myth cycle. Billy fulfills his rite of passage when Dad
grants his blessing to the defiant son.
To list exhaustively all the Saiva ingredients in the plot might
prove a formidable task: Billy's portrayal as Shiva in the very first
seconds of the film by his destruction of Tony's record, Tony's subsequent
annoyance over the destruction in his role as Vishnu, Dad being caught
in the middle of a Brahmin shaving ritual, Tony's role as "preserver"
throughout the plot. Expansion is left to interested readers.
References
Doniger O'Flaherty, Wendy. Shiva, the Erotic Ascetic. New
York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Dimmitt, Cornelia and J.A.B. van Buitenen. Classical Hindu Mythology:
A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1978.
Hines, Barry. A Kestrel For A Knave. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:
Penguin Books, 1968.
Medova, Marie-Laure. Ballet for Beginners. New York: Sterling
Publishing, 1997.
