When a young man inherits a failing shoe factory, he discovers that the only way to save it is to abandon its traditional product and manufacture…custom boots for transgenders?! Based on a true story. [ Kinky Boots credits: Dir: Julian Jarrold/ Chiwetel Ejiofor, Joel Edgerton, Sarah-Jane Potts/ 107 min/ Comedy, Drama/ Creator-as-hero, Individualism, Social tolerance]
This is a tale of two disparate social worlds colliding, and ultimately helping one another. What brings them together is entrepreneurial capitalism.
The story begins with the sad closing of a family-owned shoe factory in northern UK. The factory’s product just can’t compete with cheaper imports. One by one, loyal long-term employees are laid off. By chance, the young man inheriting the factory meets a drag queen, who in passing complains that the women’s shoes he wears keep breaking under his weight. No one has bothered serving this market, which would require making risqué shoes in women’s styles but men’s sizes.
It seems like a good opportunity, but can traditional blue-collar factory workers be persuaded to work with, and for, drag queen customers? As though moved by Adam Smith’s invisible hand, everyone learns to get along in the name of getting on with business.
Unlikely as this scenario may seem, it’s based on the true story of WJ Brooks & Co., a UK shoe manufacturing company founded in 1889, but which floundered in the 1990s under competition from imports, until it discovered and began manufacturing to serve the transgender market.
This is a decidedly upbeat comedy with strong social tolerance and pro-entrepreneurial themes. Happily, it was made in 2005, before social justice warriors started demanding separate bathrooms for transgenders, individualized pronouns, etc., so it’s not about anyone forcing anything on anyone else, just about learning to peaceably tolerate each other.
It’s also about a young man coming into his own as an entrepreneur. He begins unsure of himself and incompetent as a manager, but by the end it’s his leadership qualities — passion for the business and loyalty to his employees — that save the day.
Kinky Boots is a light, enjoyable watch with a notable libertarian (one reviewer called it “Thatcherite”) subtext. Would a centrally planned economy make custom shoes for transgenders? Not on your life. But capitalism would…and did.
External Reviews
“…more uplifting than a nine-inch stiletto.”
–BBC
“The Thacherite subtext is the lesson that English ingenuity, now meaning inclusiveness across class, race, and sexual preferences, has triumphed over the perils of globalization.”
–Political Film Society
“Kinky Boots is sly in its utter lack of pretension, as it celebrates a world where people can be their own best self and respected because of it…”
–Killer Movie Reviews
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