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 Michaelÿs 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.