Even among the most Conservative people or small towns across the country, I always thought the storyline seemed over the top, especially for 1984. Just with the way John Lithgow's pastor character and most everyone else in town, is staunchy against not only music, but teens merely dancing. Not that pockets of it wouldn't have been accurate, but it didn't feel authentic if you're trying to get a picture of how most folks would've thought about it. A song like "Let's Hear It For The Boy" isn't exactly Ozzy or Public Enemy (it sounds so innocent, lol - especially today, and probably then too), so it would be hard for me to imagine anyone really opposing it that strongly.

I'm just reading the liner notes of the Soundtrack CD, which does, in fact, say that Dean Pitchford (who knows Kenny Loggins and co-wrote some songs for the movie) sorta wrote the screenplay loosely based on his own experience when he was younger. So maybe it really was rooted in the atmosphere of past and just adapted for the early-mid '80s.

It is very much exagerated.  Trust me, you can't go much different when you move from Los Angeles to Boise Idaho.  What the movie did though was cover how alienated and culture shocked somebody can be when moving from a big city to a small town.

In many ways, moving from LA to Boise was similar in many ways to what Ren went through in the movie.  Everything seemed 3-5 years behind the times, Church was very important, and absolutely nothing was open on Sunday.  I would have friends over and play Devo, Styx or KISS records, and they were used to listening to Barry Manilow and The Carpenters.  However, I adapted just like anybody else does.

And ironically, it rubbed off on me in many ways.  When I moved back to LA a few years later, I was once again the "Odd Man Out".  I never went without my baseball cap, wore pearl button western shirts, and listened to Hall & Oates when everybody else was getting into Duran-Duran.  But once again, within a year I fit in with everybody else.

Oh, except for the pearl button western shirts and cowboy hats.  I still wear them to this day.  8)

I heard a story (can't remember from whom nor can I be assured of it accuracy) but someone told me that after the movie came out, a town did ban dancing. I did a quick search on google and couldn't come up with anything.



Cat

I heard a story (can't remember from whom nor can I be assured of it accuracy) but someone told me that after the movie came out, a town did ban dancing. I did a quick search on google and couldn't come up with anything.


There have been many.  The movie was actually based around Elmore City, Oaklahoma.  In 1980, they repealed a 120 year old law that banned dancing.  And in 1999, an 18 year old law in Big Stone Gap Virginia was overturned that banned dancing.  And there are still areas in Pennsylvania and Arizona that it is illegal to dance in.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=10787

I'm not so sure it was that exaggerated. There probably is still a few isolated towns like the one in Footloose.
My girlfriend was raised strict Christian, she wasn't allowed to dance, at all.

Their high school didn't even have a prom, they had a dinner banquet. No songs, no dancing. Boys were not allowed to sit next to or hold hands. They were pretty much taught that dancing was evil and boys and girls touching (much less dancing) would result in instant pregnancy.

To this day, she doesn't know how to dance and is terrified of it. Keeping in mind she graduated from HS 2001, so this isn't a tale from the "old days".

I can't even get her out to sing karaoke for chrissakes  ::).  I was raised Catholic and didn't have that repressed of an upbringing. :P

I've joked to her before that her teen life sounds like "Footloose" but she has no idea of what I'm talking about. Her knowledge of pop culture is VERY limited.

I've been to towns that banned dancing. one in kentucky had a big sign as you crossed the county line.  interesting.

now, was it an accurate portrayal of a guy dancing in an abandoned building?  i don't think so. ;)

I've been to towns that banned dancing. one in kentucky had a big sign as you crossed the county line.  interesting.

now, was it an accurate portrayal of a guy dancing in an abandoned building?  i don't think so. ;)


I always thought that was a strange scene. Ren gets into a spat with his uncle and he runs off. I guess dancing in an abandoned building was Ren's way of blowing off steam, but it came off as cheesy for me. Nevertheless, I loved the movie anyway.  :)

That dancing in the abandoned building was a bit cheesy, but the music ('Never' by Moving Pictures) made it great!  Whenever I watch Footloose these days, it makes me sort of sad, now that Chris Penn has passed on :\'(

I liked him in every movie I ever saw him in :)

Yes, little town across the country have banned dancing or alcohol sales or pornogrpahy or what have you from time to time.  It goes on.

OK, but get this...

You've got this podunk little town in the Bible Belt where they forbid dancing, Boy George, and Kurt Vonnegut, and the guys play chicken on farm vehicles...but they have a male gymnastics team on which the members can dress up in little tights and hit the parallel bars!
:D

But seriously, of course "Footloose" was exaggerated...that's how you make a youth market movie zesty and fun. 

I mean, what do you expect?   "Le Chagrin et la Pitie" (The Sorrow and the Pity)?

http://imdb.com/title/tt0066904/

Maybe there's a market for that, remake "Footloose" in a Nazi death camp setting.....uhhhh....on second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so good.
:-\\

Maybe there's a market for that, remake "Footloose" in a Nazi death camp setting.....uhhhh....on second thought, maybe that wouldn't be so good.
:-\\


Hey, sounds good to me.  They can show it as a double feature with Jerry Lewis' The Day The Clown Cried.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_day_the_clown_cried

I just can't believe that people in small towns can still be that backward. Anyone who's actually seen Footloose  remembers Ren quoting from the Bible that there is a time to dance. Well, if these places are in the "Bible Belt", why aren't the people reading it?!?

I used to joke that Attorney General John Ashcroft, another moron that went around screaming "You're dancing with the devil!", didn't really resign his post after Bush's re-election, but in truth had a nervous breakdown when he learned Footloose  was only a movie!

BTW, Footloose  in a Nazi death camp? I think they did that in the 60's and called it Hogan's Heroes !

Your Pal,
Doc
8)

As far as Footloose-esque small towns and people who have a similar mindset to, say, the preacher - I think their original intentions are good, but they just go overboard in how they approach it. Probably half out of ignorance. I'll admit I actually had no idea to the extent in which that still goes on sometimes.