They didn’t even need Kevin Bacon.
I’m not a huge fan of the Kevin Bacon movie “Footloose,” even though the 1984 film is pretty repesentative of my generation, of my teenage years, growing up in a rural area.
And I’m not a big fan of “Footloose” or “Danger Zone” Kenny Loggins even though those are consummate 80s songs from my generation. Now I am a big fan of “This Is It” and “I’m Alright” Kenny Loggins.
Of course “Footloose” centers on a town that banned dancing and rock music.
Well, Fort Smith, Ark., has finally decided it’s OK to dance on Sundays.
People in the town will finally be able to kick off their shoes as the city decided to repeal a 1953 ordinance that outlawed public dancing on Sundays. And of course the law was called the “Footloose” ordinance.
My guess is the law really wasn’t enforce anyway and my guess is there are likely hundreds, if not thousands of laws across this nation that have been on the books for a longtime that really don’t get enforced.
And I’m right. Nobody has been arrested or ticketed for dancing in Fort Smith on a Sunday in at least two decades.
But it’s not just public dancing, so to speak. Apparently there are public places in the town that would like to hold dances on Sundays as well without breaking the law.
As one Fort Smith city director Andre Good put it, “if you don’t care to dance on Sunday, that’s fine. We should all respect that. But let’s not impose some outdated, outmoded morality code on all our fine fellow citizens.”
So let’s hear it for the boy.
— Charles Whisnand