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.
Ah, yes… the Good Old Days when the left claimed all they wanted was tolerance. Before they came to power and demanded absolute submission. It’s why I don’t trust any leftist who says “Nobody wants to confiscate your guns.”