Great Character: Ren (“Footloose”)
The Great Character theme for the month: Rebel. Today: Ren from the 1984 movie Footloose, written by Dean Pitchford.
Popular American movies in the decade of the 1980s had many successful reoccurring attributes such as action heroes, science fiction elements and funny Saturday Night Live alumni. But Footloose had a whole different trio of winning 1980s distinctions: a teen protagonist, a hit song soundtrack and a dance-driven backdrop.
Dance floor films printed a mega mint of money with Flashdance in 1983 having $92,921,203 in theatrical receipts and 6.9 million albums sold in the United States and Canada. Dirty Dancing went on to grab $63,954,274 in cinemas in 1987 and sold 12 million albums in American and Canadian record stores. The success of the musical teen drama Footloose danced comfortably between the Flashdance and Dirty Dancing goldmines with $80,035,402 in movie theatres and 9.6 million soundtrack albums sold.
Kevin Bacon graduated from the heralded 1982 coming-of-age ensemble Diner and captured a ride on a high school front-and-center pop culture star vehicle, similar to what The Karate Kid did for Ralph Macchio and Risky Business for Tom Cruise. Directed by Herbert Ross (Steel Magnolias) and written by Dean Pitchford (Sing), Footloose became an adolescent anthem by putting a foot loosely into the real life tale of high school teens that challenged a nearly 90 year dancing ban in the rigidly religious rural town of Elmore City, Oklahoma in 1978.
REN: [to Willard] Did you ever get busted for bopping?
Footloose from IMDB:
A city teenager moves to a small town where rock music and dancing have been banned, and his rebellious spirit shakes up the populace.
Footloose takes the fish-out-of-water story trope and lets it swim with a musically motivated big city Chicago teen Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon). He takes his David Bowie spiked hair and narrow New Wave neckties to a cowboy boots and flannel shirt agricultural town with dirt roads instead of Windy City nightclubs.
REN: [to Willard] Hey, I like that hat, man. They sell men’s clothes where you got that?
Relocating to the countryside to live with his uncle and aunt, Ren makes next-to-no attempt to assimilate to the slower pace and the local John Wayne 10-gallon hat style. He peeks the ladies’ interest, but he makes the haystack boys restless.
CHUCK: I thought only pansies wore neckties.
REN: See that? I thought only assholes used the word “pansy.”
Ren pushes many of his new male peers towards jealous insecurity. Especially when one such rustic rabble-rouser Chuck puts himself in direct competition with Ren to win over the wandering eyes of his girlfriend Ariel (Lori Singer), who has caught major “Ren Fever.”
But Ren’s rock n’ roll swagger gets a head-banging nod of approval from wisecracking Willard (Chris Penn), who may not be a solid gold twinkle toes in the dance domain, but is willing to change that by becoming a Ren pupil. The preacher’s daughter Lori, who’s father Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow) is in total opposition to Ren’s sudden “sinner” influence, has her goals stretching above and beyond the geographic limits of her town. She actively seeks Ren’s city slicker approval to validate her small town rebellion. But Ren’s new pal Willard on the other hand seems perfectly poised to stay exactly where he is. But that doesn’t mean that Ren’s new dance manifesto doesn’t peak his interest to add some local excitement.
Ren’s magnetic “new dude” status and fight-for-your-right-to-party mantra wins over classmates and even Reverend Moore’s wife Vi Moore (Dianne Wiest). But in order to reverse the ironclad resistance to dance imposed by the old guard, Ren is smart enough to know that he has to turn on more than his charm. He realizes that he needs to plug his passion into the Reverend’s Holy Bible itself.
For his devoted belief in the connecting power of music and dance, for his unwavering self-belief and reliance, and his ultra 80s nostalgic persona — Ren McCormick is GREAT CHARACTER in the convention of movie rebels.
And if you missed Kevin Bacon’s recent appearance on “The Tonight Show,” check it out:
A special end note to this week’s Great Character post:
My name is Jason Cuthbert, a GoIntoTheStory.com contributor to GREAT CHARACTERS since June 8th 2012. I’m directing my very first feature length documentary entitled: “COLOURING BOOK: The Mixed Race Documentary” that compares diversity in the United States to Canada, through three generations of my own multicultural family. Academic experts and animated segments will be blended in to enhance the educational value of the core storyline. My team and I are currently raising funds at SeedandSpark.com to finance equipment for “COLOURING BOOK,” as well as future documentaries and scripted narratives. Any support would be incredibly appreciated.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Website Link: http://www.colouringbook.info
Campaign Link: http://www.seedandspark.com/studio/colouring-book-productions
Jason’s Twitter Handle: @A2Jason
Colouring Book Twitter Handle: @ColouringBk
There are at two damn good reasons to throw some support Jason’s way. First, this looks like a fascinating and worthy documentary. Second, a show of gratitude to Jason for his steadfast contributions to this blog and to the life of the online screenwriting community with his insightful weekly Great Character posts.
To contribute to Colouring Book, go here.