Billy Elliot Essay free essay sample

Your texts offer various representations of familiar experiences and new horizons. Compare these representations, referring to your prescribed text and at least ONE other related text of your own choosing. Topic sentence 1: Gender Expectations within society Topic sentence 2: Parent control plays a large part in shaping the individual Topic sentence 3: how political issues affect society There are various representations within the text that challenges the individual to experiences familiar and new horizons. Through the texts Billy Elliot and The short story The Story of X have helped to convey various new horizons and familiar experiences. Firstly, New horizons can be explored through both Billy Elliot and the story of x with the challenging of gender expectations and the effort in which the characters display in order to breakthrough the dominant discourses in their lives. The second paragraph will explore how parental control plays a large part in shaping an individual. The third paragraph will explore how political issues affect society, and the individuals within society. All three texts have familiar experiences and all embrace new horizons which allows the individuals growth and change within their lives and throughout society. 1 edit Topic Sentence: Gender Expectations within Society The first issue i will be discussing is gender expectations within society. There are alot of gender expectations within society that are involved with Billy Elliot and the Story of X. In Billy Elliot, boys are meant to do boxing, wrestling and any other sports that may be viewed as strictly masculine and girls are meant to do ballet, cooking and sewing. This is evident within the scene Dad finds out where Jackie is telling Billy, he is not allowed to do ballet Boys do football, soccer, wrestling, not friggin ballet and eventually bans Billy from attending ballet class and even boxing, to care for his grandmother. This is significant as traditionally women are meant to do the nursing of the sick and stay home but to prove a point to Billy Jackie makes Billy perform these tasks. These challenges are emphasised by the lack of dialogue, allowing complete focus to be placed on Billy as he dances in an attempt to break through the social constraints. Similarly, it is shown with the story of X, when the school childrens parents have certain expectations for boys and very different expectations for girls. The boys start to partake in activities such as cooking and sewing and girls start to become involved with football, soccer and other stereotypical boys activities. 2 edit The child-parent relationship is of central importance for the individual to learn from familiar experiences and embrace new horizons. 3 edit Both texts examine how politics can encroach upon an individuals experiences, representing struggles with which the individual must engage in order to grow. In Billy Elliot, political struggle can be seen in the scene set to the song London Calling, which depicts the violence of the miners strike. For Billy, the miners aggression is a large part of his world and by choosing to disengage with it, he distances himself from his brothers physical violence. Although he sees the violence that was inflicted upon his brother, it affects billy in his attitudes which is seen later in the scene when mrs Wilkinson tries to confront billy about being late for his audition. Please miss not now which shows the disappointment within himself for missing the audition and that if his bother being arrested. Likewise, in The Story of X, politics can be seen in terms of discrimation and confidentiality. The parents of the other children try to force xs parents to reveal what gender he/she is, which is a vialtion of xs confidentiality. The parents of the other chidlren also discrimate against it, becuase of his different beliefs, the parents trying to force X to reveal its gender because he is different to the other children  are addressed throughout various stages in the film. These issues become prominant as the miners strike shows substantial evidence where political views and expectations test our ability and discourses present in life. conclusion edit In conclusion, gender (sex) expectations, parental control and political struggle all represent familiar experiences with which an individual must deal in order to grow. In each text, it has been shown that familiar experiences often involve struggles between individuals, their parents, society and socially-defined norms such as gender stereotypes. However, it has also been shown that when individuals are able to determine their own identities in spite of these factors, they are able to grow by embracing new horizons and encourage other individuals around them to do so as well. Familiar experiences represent the struggles in which individuals are engaged such as redefining gender roles, overcoming domineering parenting and political issues. All of these are fine examples where familiar experiences can bring upon a new horizon which is a continual process as we grow and change throughout life. The Story of X depicts gender in the formation that being a particular gender often limits the actions that individuals can undertake without becoming ridiculed, which is shown in comparison with Billy Elliot as he struggles in this masculine society where males are ridiculed upon for being feminine like or physically weak. For new horizons to be reached people within The Story of X' and Billy Elliot must lt go for the past and accept the future of a more modernised society that accepts people for who they are, what they are interested in, and all other factors that influence us as people within society.