In the America of Footloose, a nebulously “Christian” Wahhabi-style fundamentalist organized religion holds sway over American culture to such a degree that the poor kids in the hick town where the movie takes place aren’t even allowed to have a school dance! (cue a gasping, dying Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”) This state of affairs is due, naturally, to the oppressive influence of the stodgy old City Council, who take their cue from the town’s holy-rolling preacher-man, who sees rock music as demonic and dancing as a lewd expression of forbidden sexuality. Even the local cops get in on the act; when cool newcomer Kevin Bacon plays Quiet Riot too loud on his car stereo, some mean ol’ boy in blue pulls him over, pulls out his cassette tape, and slaps him across the chin with it. (This humiliating brush with police brutality later prompts Bacon’s character to smoke, drink, and do a bunch of vengeful pirouetting in an abandoned warehouse while a generic '80s song plays over the soundtrack—a scene of epic, iconic silliness.)
Eventually, of course, Bacon’s character leads the kids at the school—all of whom look like they’re at least in their mid-'20s— in a righteous rebellion against the forces of adult oppression, repression, and suppression of libidinous youth. The requisitely hot n’ wild daughter of the preacher-man rebukes her dad for having his head in the sand, memorably screaming “I’m not even a virgin!” at him in a moment cued to provoke audience oohs, ahhs, and applause. The preacher-man eventually sees the light, learns that he must give way to flaming youth, who then go forth to dance an expertly choreographed number in the gymnasium when their savior Kevin Bacon arrives late, slides in on his knees, and mandates that the pseudo-teenage booty-shaking begin. Cue Kenny Loggins, fresh from scoring the theme song to Caddyshack, yet another movie which had the courage to bash conservative, religious repression in an age where it barely existed. “Kick off your Sunday shoes,” indeed.
Judging from the trailer for the new Footloose, we’re going to get much of the same, with a few more Black faces, and a touch more hip-hop-derived dirty dancing. The heroine appears to be a Miley Cyrus-lookalike with an attitude, the hero another blandly handsome white boy with the dance moves of a ‘gro and pluck and gumption to take on those all-powerful Christian fundies who so rule this America that isn’t.
Yet the propagandizing, while still trite and ridiculous, could have been worse. We might have been treated to an interracial romance, or a gay romance, or an interspecies romance, or an intergenerational romance, among the two leads. I guess one of those scenarios will have to wait for the next remake of Footloose, in the early 2040s.
Or perhaps the corrupt, debased, and debauched Hollywood system will have died a horrible death by that time, and America will be ruled by new masters with a different agenda to promote. We’ll just have to wait and see.
