Billy Elliot Plot/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A father wants his son to pursue a manly interest, when the son would rather pursue a less masculine one.

  • Straight: Bob wants nothing more than for his son, Billy, to be a good football player. However, Billy is interested in being a professional chef.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Bob wants Billy to be a fighter in the MMA profession - but Billy wants to be a ballet dancer.
    • For the record, this is almost the exact plot of the Trope Namer.
  • Justified:
    • Bob is genuinely afraid that Billy won't grow up right without the right influences.
    • Bob is worried that by choosing a more feminine profession, Billy is opening himself up for harassment, and only wants to protect his son.
  • Inverted:
    • Bob wants Billy to engage in a non-masculine hobby - but Billy isn't having any of it, as he wants to be a quarterback.
    • Charlotte wants her daughter Alice to Stay in the Kitchen, Alice would rather be a Wrench Wench.
  • Subverted: Billy tells Bob he'd rather be a professional chef than a football star. Bob says "OK" and congratulates him.
  • Double Subverted: At first, anyway. After he's slept on it for a couple of days, he comes back and tells Billy "no".
  • Parodied: Bob is a professional chef himself, but won't allow Billy to follow in his footsteps.
  • Deconstructed: Bob's puts his foot down and forces Billy to stay on the football team. Billy ends up resenting Bob because he wouldn't let him follow his heart.
  • Reconstructed: Billy defies Bob's word, and while there's considerable strain on their relationship at first, Bob ultimately accepts that this is what Billy wants to do - so he'll support him anyway.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob can never decide whether or not he wants to support Billy.
  • Averted: There is no strain between what Bob and Billy want.
  • Enforced: "So I figure the son wants to be a chef and the dad wants him to be a football star. This thing writes itself!"
  • Lampshaded: "Why can't you just support what I want to do?!"
  • Invoked: Bob is talking with his drinking buddy Charlie, who's talking about his own experiences with his son, Chuck. "You know, if you don't start your boy in football soon, he may grow up to be a pansy like my boy Chuck over there."
  • Defied: "I don't like the idea of you being a chef - but I will support you anyway."
  • Discussed: "I'm not letting our son go for any after school activities. I just know he's going to pick cooking."
  • Conversed: "Lets see: amazing food every time the kid visits and he could get his own daytime TV show. Why is the dad against this again?"

Back to Billy Elliot Plot. Unless you want something else. That's, uhhhh, fine too, son.

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