Honestly, darling,
If we really want to change this world for the better, all we gotta do is dance.
In public spaces.
And make it like, a religion or something.
Here’s why:
In 1984, Footloose was made with Kevin Bacon starring as Ren, this high school cool guy who moves into a suburban town where dancing is outlawed because it causes “spiritual corruption.”
But Ren isn’t having it. He dances anyway, wherever he wants, and he is good at it. He’s just so freaking adorable!
This dancing wherever you want, whenever you want, to pop music, results in a bunch of hassle from dumb guys who pick on Ren and his friends. And it causes a lot of backlash from the conservative religious folks, because they have created a lot of drama about “right and wrong” when it comes to how teenagers and women behave (and they’re also kind of bored and repressed, too).
“It’s like everyone in this town is choking on something,” Ren says at one point to his mom. “Only they don’t know they are choking.”
Instead of backing down about dancing, Ren goes to the town hall meeting and starts reading the bible to the pastor guys who are trying to say dancing is sinful.
Now, let’s all just acknowledge for a moment the power that one wields when he or she knows the Bible, and he or she can stand up against the dudes preaching about “the Bible” with other things the Bible actually says, so that one party/sector doesn’t have more authority over the other when it comes to “religious teachings.” When we are reading the same text and acknowledging the variety of opinions, and appreciating different points of view, aren’t we maybe almost getting somewhere? Hmm?
That’s why liberal folks need to read the Bible with some open-heartedness so they can reference it readily, and have some thorough sit-downs with conservatives around a table. Seriously, let’s put a cheese plate together with some pecans and make this happen.
So, anyway, in the town hall, Ren quotes a series of prophets who danced in praise and celebration of God, like David (from whatever book David is in, let’s google it!) who was “Dancing and leaping before the Lord.”
Ren is so overcome with vitality and fiery spirit that the old repressed dudes have to acknowledge he has a valid point! Yay!
And then dancing actually happens in a roundabout way!
The town heals!
Everyone wins!
(Sorry if I gave away the ending.)
Now, as you read this, we are not in 1984, when Footloose was made. We are also not in the novel 1984 by George Orwell (but actually we are, just some details are different). Still, the presidential election will be in 2024 and that will be 40 years since Footloose was made. And we are wrestling with similar issues of division over religious beliefs, because most at root of our political divide is—IN MY OPINION!—the subject and understanding of bodily autonomy, and our concepts of who owns and has jurisdiction over our bodies.
And ideas and identification with sex, too. In all kinds of ways.
Now, mind you, when I say “our bodies,” I really mean “women’s bodies,” because men’s bodies and women’s bodies are not the same. And men are pretty much allowed to do what they want with their bodies except rape and harm. (Only they can sort of rape and harm at times and people look the other way because they’re men and it is hard to litigate some of those matters that happen behind closed doors, especially when there is so much shaming and silencing about speaking up against perpetrators.)
Not everyone knows what bodily autonomy is. It is when you have freedom to choose whatever you want to do with your body. The care and nurturing of it. The choices. The boundaries.
Just like the U.S. Constitution says, “It is your right to have a gun. Or even many guns!” there is kind of sort of this idea that we are free people who can choose certain things but um, well, not always if you’re a woman, cause—
The word “woman” or “women” is not in the constitution! Seriously, folks, I looked. The word in the constitution is just “men”—so we’re kind of in a weird predicament with this issue all around, equality and sexism and that sort of thing.
Sex and the spirit—whether sex can be spiritual rather than shameful, wrong, and dirty—is this thing we need to deal with as a culture, in some way, on a universal level, because until we have some healthier understandings about sex, and the way to educate about sex, and the way to help people stop harming one another through sex, and reduce shame about sex but also act in healthy ways toward this primal urge, and respect as sacred a woman’s body that gives life—both men and women, both—well, we are just maybe stumped for a bit in all these political ways that hold us back and keep us under some nonexistent patriarchal Know-It-All in the sky we think calls the shots and run things, but who really files for bankruptcy all the time and hangs out with Russian fascists and is racist.
What are we gonna do, Momma?
Take the pastor-dad in Footloose. He is finally wisened through his calm and centered and pretty wife, who reminds him of his soul and where he came from.
Maybe we all just need a calm and centered and pretty wife?
And so, my whole point about the miraculous wholesome underbelly of the movie Footloose, is that it shows how dancing is a surefire way, without any words, to stand up to the outdated patriarchal authority that persists despite how nonsensical and harmful it is.
The dancing person shows off, without any words, saying, “Hey, it feels good to own my own body and be in my body. Yippee! Look at me smiling! Watch me move and breathe in whatever way I choose! Isn’t life grand?”
If we can find a way to do more dancing in our capitol buildings and political systems and the film industry—and I don’t mean dancing that is overtly sexual, but that is simply joyful and embodied—maybe we can save ourselves from Artificial Intelligence amassing political and economic capital and running the free world.
Salvation through the power of dance is possible!
IN MY OPINION!
Perhaps a Dance on Washington may be in order?
Where is Kevin Bacon when you need him, what’s his schedule like? I hear he is from Philadelphia, too. Maybe he and I can get a cheese plate one of these days and figure something out.
With a little lavender and honey jawn to dip the apples in.
Toodles,
Ms. Wonderful