Strictly Ballroom- the power of the community

Scott Hastings is a young dancer looking for his place to in the dancing community yet the limitations put forth by the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championships prevents him from doing so. Regardless of the consequences we can see that when Scott chooses to dance his own steps, he not only lost, but his family and dancing partner crumble around him. All these externalities put pressure on Scott to conform to the given steps that were danced within the previous years. This shows a form of power from the Dancing Championships as it does not let individuals express themselves through their own dance movements let alone the original dances.

As dance revolves around the freedom to express oneself the limitations put forth by the community prevents such actions of expression. This becomes obvious to Scott as he performs the Dancing Championships take of the Pasodoble to a Spanish Family who laughs in his face. Not knowing why he follows the family to the back where they performance of the original Pasodoble which captivated Scott. The daughter, Fran also helped Scott come to the realization as she is the only individual who wants to dance Scott’s steps, even though they prevented him from winning. Even with the knowledge of losing Scott still chooses to re-enter the Dancing Championship dancing against the given steps until his “family secret” is revealed.

The influence of the Dancing Championship is done through coercive power which suppresses freewill though the act of fear. The matter of dance is so large within the Hastings family that loosing would only bring back the memory of what Scott’s parents nearly had as opposed to what they should have had. We find out that Scott’s mother didn’t want to dance with the father as he too danced his own steps which was constantly degraded and ignored but could have prevented this cycle of power back then. Only then can they have the freedom to truly dance.