Ariel Moore is a fictional character from the musical drama film and 2011 remake of Footloose, portrayed by Julianne Hough. She is the lead female and Ren McCormack's romantic interest and eventual girlfriend later.
A native to the semirural hamlet of Bomont, Georgia, Ariel is a young woman who is the daughter of the town's local Godfearing pastor, Rev. Shaw Moore, whom her relationship with is deeply strained based on him creating draconian laws in Bomont where dancing and rock music is against the law and a criminal offense after the death of her elder brother, Bobby who died in a car accident while intoxicated coming home from a night of partying, dancing, and drinking with some friends of his.
She is outraged and disgusted with these oppressive laws that were proposed by her father, leading her to act out rebelliously against him and date the troublesome gutter trash, Chuck Cranston. After meeting Ren McCormack in church, who moved from Boston to live with his maternal relatives, the Warnickers after his mother's death from leukemia and his father's abandonment, Ariel begins to develop an interest in him, which slowly becomes romantic until she breaks up with Cranston based on all of the trouble he's gotten Ren into.
Ariel eventually joins a petition created by Ren with their classmates in hopes to permanently abolish the law against dancing and rock music to challenge her hometown's backwards and dishonest religious beliefs so they can have a school prom, which she fully supports.
