Lesson One: How To Remove One’s Feet

Hi, I’m Kevin Bacon. You may remember me from such films as “Keifer Doesn’t Live Anymore” (aka Flatliners) and “Look Who’s Still Overacting” (aka Sleepers). Being a big-time Hollywood celebrity I get asked lots of questions such as, “So, how is the air up there?”, or “Mister Bacon, how do I find the ass end?”, and “How do I know if Houston is really having a problem or if it’s just a minor grievance?”. But the most common question I hear is, “Yo Kevin, my foots’ feelin a little tight, how I loosen this shit up?”. And that’s why I’m here today. To teach young people everywhere how to loosen that shit up. And what better way to do that than to watch my cinematic triumph, Footloose.

In Footloose I play hot-to-trot teenager Ren McCormack with loose morals and loose feet to match. Ren suddenly finds himself torn from the hub of activity that is Chicago, and forced into a town where people’s feet are screwed on tighter than a mason jar full of preserves. Metaphorically speaking, the townspeople are the rusted joints, and Ren has the wrench and WD-40 to fix what ails ’em. The local pastor has this hick town wound up so tight that the boot, scoot, and the boogie are the unholy trinity. And if dancing is a sin, then Ren is the Dark Lord himself. Like any teen, Ren has trouble expressing himself, and the only outlet he has is dancing. Ren isn’t the Lord of Darkness; he’s the Lord of the Dance!

The happily repressed teens of the town don’t much cotton to Ren’s uppity city ways, and he soon runs afoul of the high school “big seed on campus” hero. After a few run-ins with the local hayseeds, the adults begin to notice how Ren’s “ache to booty shake” is a prospective blight on their non-dancin, corn lovin eden. Ren’s only friend is a young hick who dreams of having his feet loosened. Unfortunately, years of being pinned under tractors and god have screwed his feet on too tightly to get down with his bad self. And after a harrowing tractor chicken fight with school bully Ren wins the respect of a few other slack-jawed yokels. Obviously enough, this includes the Lord of the Redneck’s girlfriend (who happens to be the preacher’s daughter). She is easy to spot as a hell raiser (on account of her red boots), and when she witnesses Ren dancing up a storm in an empty barn she becomes hopelessly ensnared in the forbidden dance of love. Not long after the preacher’s daughter feels the flow, the other teens have a foreboding sense that the rhythm IS going to get them. And when stupid kids want to dance badly, they want to dance badly at a prom.

Like Martin Luther, Ren had hammered an edict on the gymnasium door. There will be a prom. There will be dancing. However, to the maligned joy of the town pastor and his puritans, a greasing of the spirit was not enough to loosen the feet of the young blasphemers. Ren’s church of new believers was full of brethren, but no hallelujahs were belted. Twas then, Ren, the leader of the new school, began his sermon. He danced like he’s never danced before. The crowd stirred, moved by the sermon of his gyrations, to the beat. Slowly, amens were heard in the sound of cheap rubber soles squeaking across the floor. The pastor could only look on helplessly as his daughter, Ren, and the rest of the young upstarts stomped the old religion into the parquet floor. Ren had unleashed his can of WD-40, and it was good.

And so, we can see from the masterpiece that is Footloose that the only true way to “loosen that shit up” is to throw off the chains of conformity. Break free from the normalcy of social and religious mores that bind us, and “cut footloose”.

Disclaimer: The words here are not the actual words of Kevin Bacon. MCFTR has never actually been in contact with Mr. Bacon. The actual text above is actually the result of a collaboration between our own TB and his wife Beth. Mr. Bacon, we respect you and your six degrees and everything, and hope you enjoy this piece of satire. As if you’ll ever read it.

Bookmark It!

Hide Sites