“Understanding nourishes belonging…a lack of understanding prevents it”
Like all living organisms individuals thrive in environments where they are accepted and understood and have a deeper connection through social or cultural similarities, but struggle when acceptance is rejected due to a lack of understanding. This is evident through the film ‘Strictly Ballroom’ by Baz Luhrman as well as the poem ‘Square and brown inside’ by Richard Karl Roberts. This is expressed through a variety of literary and film techniques that demonstrate individuals within a society prosper in situations of acceptance and wither in rejection. An individual’s sense of belonging is determined by their surroundings, it can be negative or positive depending on one’s decision.
Belonging is an essential human necessity that nourishes individuals to obtain acceptance, security and fulfilment from others. In the mocumentary strictly ballroom belonging is based on fear and social conformity this is seen through the protagonist Scott Hastings as he is caught between belonging to the dance federation and the Spanish community. Scott dancing “federation steps” created a lack of understanding for what it means to belong preventing him from growing as an individual and seeing outside the world of conformity and fear. Deciding to dance from the heart with Fran using his “crowd pleasing”, “non-federation steps” at the Pan-Pacific’s Grand Prix he was able to improve his understanding of belonging to the Spanish community.
A variety of techniques are used in Strictly Ballroom to demonstrate the idea that belonging and acceptance stems from being nourished and understood by others and a lack of it prevents it. Luhrman uses colour throughout the film to engage the audience and differentiate between the world of ballroom dancing and the Spanish community this can be seen in a variety of scenes where the technique of costume is used. Luhrman creates an artificial world to symbolise the dance...