A crime has been committed. That crime is an unforgivable one: that of an ill-considered remake.
The idea of remaking Footloose was not offensive in itself. A big city boy comes to a small town in Hicksville USA, a very strict and joyless place where kids may not congregate and do any dancing within the town limits. He likes a good old dance so sets about challenging this law.
The original was good: a beloved coming of age story of struggling against conformity and recognising kindred spirits. It also had some cracking good tunes and a lovely bit of anger-inspired dancing. It could be attempted once more, a reminder or call to arms to the current generation of Rens and Ariels, needing a cause to unite them against hypocrisy and bigotry.
The remake didn’t do any of this. A lot of the dialogue was exactly the same but the things or scenes which made you identify and care about Ren (was Kevin Bacon, now Kenny Wormald) and Ariel (was Lori Singer, now Julianne Hough) were sadly missing. What saddened me most of all was the reduction of Ariel to arse-barer extraordinaire. Granted, the original character was known to be a bit of a wild child but you could see that she wanted to believe in something. The updated Ariel has no such discernable cause. Her main scenes involve her taking her clothes off, referring to other girls as sluts, having sex or dancing in not a lot of clothes. Gone were the heartfelt, recognisable discussions with her father (was John Lithgow, now Dennis Quaid) and any hope of a character with more than one dimension. Ariel’s mother, originally played very sensitively by Dianne Wiest, is also reduced to a token couple of lines for Andie MacDowell.
Is it too much to ask Hollywood scriptwriters to actually focus on creating believable and well-rounded female characters instead of reinforcing already well-held prejudices?
I was at a loss to see what director Craig Brewer was trying to achieve with this film. Some things were changed but mainly the superficial details – the focus on the dead teenagers (motive for dancing ban) was more about the shrine in the high school hall than a grief you could see in the eyes of their parents. Some of the supporting characters changed colour - got a ‘racelift’ - to reflect our supposedly more diverse acting talent 20+ years on and some of the songs were changed to make room for more booty-shaking scenes. Update complete.
The court scene was disappointing too – these lines were changed but not for the better. Ren makes his case by trying to convince the town lawmakers that he understands why the adults were protective and worried about their children. Parents are there to worry. Teenagers are there to dance and have fun. Translation = young people are fun but anyone with children does not want to dance and have fun. Their life is over so they can worry about their kids. Youth rules supreme.
Part of the appeal of the original soundtrack was also removed. The ‘teaching Willard to dance’ scene was still there; replicated almost exactly, complete with the little girls and their cute karaoke microphones. It was otherwise quite lacking in the toe-tapping department. The only time I felt like moving my feet was the final scene where everyone is finally allowed to ‘cut loose’. Sadly, Ariel cannot cut loose until she changes the ludicrously high heels she was originally wearing; any dancer knows you would never be able to get your groove on in such inappropriate footwear (the kind that forces your feet down into the peep toe and cuts off any circulation you might have had).
So, makers of this film, please go directly back to your drawing board and create some characters we actually have a chance at identifying with. And keep your hands off our film treasures.
