Footloose (1984)

8 months ago

Footloose (1984)

YOU EVER GET BUSTED FOR BOPPIN’?

by Elisabeth Geier

Junior year of high school, all the girls took dance for phys. ed. It was a zero period class, meaning it met before the start of the regular school day, early enough that for much of the year it was still dark when we got to the gym. I was no dancer, but few of us were; it was a way to get out of regular P.E., away from playing field sports with boys and being timed on the mile. For midterms, we had to choreograph and perform a one-minute solo. One minute is a long time for a non-dancer to dance alone.

My first knowledge of Footloose came during that year, from my friend Emily, who performed her midterm to Kenny Loggins’ title song.

“Sounds like ‘Ducktales,’” I said, when she tried to sing it for me in the hallway.

Emily and I used to drive around just to drive, get lost, and find our way home. One night “Footloose” came on the radio, and Emily screamed, in the middle of an empty cul-de-sac, “Pull over, pull over, watch. This is my song.”

She jumped out of the car to dance in the street. I sat in the driver’s seat and watched. It’s a movie scene in my memory: my best friend, lit by headlights, dancing to “Footloose” in a white v-neck and khaki shorts. For years, I carried the memory of Emily dancing as a singular moment in our friendship, her performance an impulse born of familiarity and comfort. She wouldn’t dance for just anybody. I was special, privy to a show nobody else saw.

Twelve years later, I finally saw Footloose, and realized that Emily’s cul-de-sac performance was a direct reference to one of the most famous images in the film: Kevin Bacon, lit by headlights, dancing in front of a car.

The dancing doesn’t even happen until a third of the way through the movie. First we have to get the story established, which is that Ren McCormack just rolled in to Bomont, Utah from Chicago, Illinois, where he went dancing in nightclubs all the time. Music and dancing are forbidden in Bomont; five years ago, the preacher’s son was coming home from a school dance when the car he was in went off a bridge, and the preacher—who has a lot of influence in the community—blames the dance for his son’s death.

Ren is immediately targeted for his city-boy ways, and the plot hinges on whether or not he will be accepted, whether or not he can reintroduce music and dance to this small town, and whether or not he will get the girl. Guess what happens.

The plot is weak, but there is a bright spot in Ren’s best friend Willard, played by Chris Penn. Ren and Willard meet on the first day of school, when Ren bumps into Willard in the hallway and Willard overreacts. Willard makes fun of Ren’s haircut, Ren makes fun of Willard’s hat; they are immediate friends because they share a sense of humor, because Ren needs someone to lead around, and because Willard is happy to be led. It’s a familiar dynamic—the kid with charisma, and the best friend who is always slightly in awe. It works because Chris Penn is so aw-shucks endearing, so natural in his role as willing tagalong to the star.

Footloose is Kevin Bacon’s film, but Chris Penn is right beside him all the way through. Willard cheers for Ren in a tractor chicken race. Willard gives Ren the idea to fight town law and stage a dance. Willard gets the second-best girl in town, the best friend of Ren’s girl, and this is tropey and lame but as viewers we want Willard to be happy, because he’s such a loyal guy. At the end of the movie, Ren and his girlfriend take the floor, and for a moment we watch Willard watching them dance. That’s his best friend out there, putting on a show. Willard won’t take center stage, but he will gladly shine a light on his friend, and feel lit by association.

Footloose is not a good movie, which has made it difficult to write about, because to be honest, Willard is the only part I like. He’s goofy and real and self-aware, where the rest of the characters, the film itself, take themselves far too seriously. Sure, the dance scenes are cool, but their tone is completely out of line with the rest of the film. The edits are jumpy, the characters are thin, and the leaps in story and logic are absurd. The resolution comes out of nowhere and takes place almost entirely off screen—everyone is mad for a while, then suddenly everyone is fine, and in the end, everyone dances. I love a so-bad-it’s-good movie, but this one is just plain bad. Still, for some reason, the story persists. Footloose is considered a teen classic, and Kevin Bacon got famous for a reason. Maybe it’s just that the people who love it saw it at the right time; as filmgoers, we cling to nostalgia, to the movies we saw when we were the perfect age to obsess. Even when the movie itself isn’t very good, we hold it up because of what it meant to us at the time we loved it best.

We treat friendships the same way, long after we grow apart. Emily was my best friend when I was five, then eleven, then seventeen. We only talk once or twice a year now, but she’ll always be my oldest friend, and I’ll always think of her fondly as a girl for whom I loved to play sidekick. By the time this essay is published, Emily will be a mother; her daughter is due any day. It’s shocking to realize how suddenly old we are, how old we will become, and how our younger roles persist. I still picture my friend in headlights, and it’s still a special memory, although now I know it wasn’t just for me. It was for Emily, for the movie she loved, and I just happened to be behind the wheel.

Ren and Willard would be 46 by now, and they probably wouldn’t be talking much, either. Maybe their families exchange Christmas cards, and they catch up on a camping trip once every few years. Probably they fall back into mutual teasing and laughter the way they always did. No matter their accomplishments or disappointments as adults, no matter where they are in life, they maintain something of their teenage dynamic. I guarantee Ren’s approval still means the world to Willard, and Willard still remembers watching his friend dance.

(Note: in 2010, a group of filmmakers collaborated on a scene-by-scene remake of Footloose that I find much more enjoyable than the original. BWDR’s own Christopher Cantwell acted and directed the hell out of the final fight scene—watch his contribution here, and the entire remake at http://ourfootlooseremake.com).