"The Harmful Drive for Queer Perfection" Transcript
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Nov 05, 2022
First published.
Dec 07, 2023
Privated post-callout.
Feb 26, 2024
Unprivated with apology 2, claiming no plagiarism.
May 8, 2024Channel deleted
As of Nov 05, 2022
Why is it that, for queer people, perfection is a necessity instead of an option?
PATREON: [link]
00:00 Introduction
03:50 Chapter 1
12:00 Chapter 2
18:55 Chapter 3
31:27 Chapter 4
40:29 Chapter 5
As of Feb 26, 2024
Why is it that, for queer people, perfection is a necessity instead of an option?
[patreon link]
00:00 Introduction
03:50 Chapter 1
12:00 Chapter 2
18:55 Chapter 3
31:27 Chapter 4
40:29 Chapter 5
Content Warning:
Brief discussion of eating disorders, assault, and straight people.
one of the cornerstones that our society is constructed around is success for all that it is an abstract concept we certainly push our entire lives to meet it and yet has there ever been anything so coveted that is so vaguely defined what is success what does success mean and what does it mean to be successful and most importantly how do I get some of it it may seem self-evident at first just you know be successful and you know you've got it when you've got a nice house a nice car a good job but are you really successful if someone has better stuff than you if success is a gauge of who's doing the best then we can only say that one person is really successful the power for Success needs to be low enough to be attainable but high enough that it can hover over your head like a carrot on a fishing pole go on little donkey go to school for accounting and forget all about music production the latter has a small chance of Mega success whereas the former is a more moderate success but is almost guaranteed and you know not everyone can be the next Lady Gaga maybe that idea of success is a bit too steep maybe it's okay to settle for you know district manager but can you really say that you're successful if you have to settle maybe success is relative to what is available to you but then again what excuse do you have for patting yourself on the back for getting that management promotion when Janelle Monae was born in Kansas City to a maid and a truck driver among queer people there is a market push for a kind of success because it is not a success that is recognized by the masses it's a quiet success that may go uncredited in a person's lifetime for the longest time queer people had to live in the closet so in many ways success was denied to them if they didn't have the stomach for starting a heteroalien family of their own open queer people were shut out from society and yet still we persisted we still managed to become some of the greatest artists filmmakers writers musicians and King makers the world has ever seen so why do queer people have this seemingly innate Drive to exemplify perfection if you've been close to queer creators you'll know what I'm talking about there's a need to push boundaries break molds and go above and beyond what everyone else in their field is doing were show-offs because we have to be so why do we feel like we have to be why isn't good enough good enough when that's perfectly fine for 90 of the population who wants to be good enough when you can be perfect [Music] Black Swan is a 2010 Darren Aronofsky film starring Natalie Portman which skyrocketed her to the status of one of the generation's greatest actresses she'd come a long way from Star Wars and Mars Attacks this also is probably Darren aronofsky's signature film in spite of it bearing a striking similarity to the Japanese animated film perfect blue both in content and aesthetic would have been easy enough to say yeah I saw perfect blue and really wanted to do my own take on it but with a New York ballet troop but there was a rigamaru for a long time where Aronofsky denied having even ever seen it because ego I guess the primary separation between the two pictures is black Swan's focus on camera work and Natalie Portman's performance Black Swan lost the best picture Academy Award to The King's Speech I would have been more than comfortable if it had gone to either Black Swan or The Social Network that year but instead I had to cringe my way through another important period piece imagery and themes from Black Swan remain media relevant even over a decade later it's likely that unlike even The Social Network Black Swan will persist as a generation defining film for the Hollywood Vault because certainly nobody really remembers The King's Speech and aside from Portman's home run performance as walking panic attack Nina the Prima ballerina the ongoing reverence for the film suggests there is far more to it how does this film speak to the people who continue to hold on to it Nina is the daughter of a single mother and former ballet dancer whose career had to get tucked away to raise her daughter it's unclear if Nina's excellence in dance is something she wanted or if it's something her mother pushed her into Nina is over parented and locked in a state of Perpetual girlhood we do have an indication that Nina's sexuality is at least fluid her sexual interest in Jacques seems to be more about proving a point to him and her sexual interest in Lily could be more of an act of rebellion I swear there's an entire Ace or pansexual paper that you could write about the implicit sexuality of Nina I'm inclined to say that her queerness is not indicative of the plot but her uncomfortable sexual attraction and or sexual indifference to others and herself is underlying the whole film The Girl is confused Nina also likely lives with undiagnosed psychosis nowhere in the film is this explicitly stated though the audience is given this impression through hallucinations and gaps in her perception she consistently sees her face on other girls who look similar to her which given that this is a New York ballet troupe is almost everyone in her immediate circle she possesses a number of psychological ticks when Under Pressure she scratches and picks at her skin somehow picking off a hangnail is one of the most unsettling moments of body Horror in cinema history which is part of why this film struck so hard peeling back a hangnail and accidentally ripping off your finger is something I'm sure we've all been afraid of at some point and if you haven't I hope you're enjoying your mental health her ballet troop is lagging in audience attendance and in order to cycle more butts into seats The Troop director Jacques decides to cycle out their former Prima ballerina Beth to Mark the reinvigoration of the troop season he is staging a reimagined and streamlined performance of Swan Lake Nina is selected to take Beth's position after a questionable audition process sussing some of the bite out of the timid sheltered girl Jacques struggles to translate that onto stage Nina's meticulous obsession with structure and factory-made Poise he feels blocks her from truly embodying the raw and seductive Passion of the Black Swan the story of the ballet follows Prince Siegfried who is given his father's blessing to go on one last Bachelor stag Bender before having to select a candidate for betrothal boys right while on a hunting trip with his friends he encounters a glorious Swan though just as he takes aim the sun drops below the Horizon and the swan transforms into a beautiful woman she tells him that she is Princess Odette who angered the wicked Sorcerer rothbard And was cursed to live her daylight hours as a swan and that only true love could break this curse the two dance and talk all night and quickly begin to feel a budding Romance but before Siegfried could confess his feelings odette's swantaraj finds her and whisks her away from what they feel could be the dangerous false promise of affection Siegfried returns to his castle and demands his servants return to the lake to secure the swan for upon Nightfall he shall give his promises to her his parents naturally hesitant call upon a number of other ladies regardless and all the night is spent dancing and celebrating but when The Swan Princess arrives All Eyes fall upon her this version of Odette favors black and not only seduces Siegfried but enchants the entire court and it is not until Siegfried offers her his hand in marriage and the whole of nobility offers their blessing that she reveals herself to be Odelay the daughter of rothbart and his student in sorcery Siegfried rushes to Odette whose heart is broken knowing how easy it was to avert his gaze from her there are several endings to Swan Lake most of them are tragic but with varying degrees yes you get the one where Siegfried renews his affections for Odette and their love overpowers rothbart's magic but Tchaikovsky had no hand in that most endings revolve around Odette taking her own life as with the ballets ending in Black Swan sometimes one or both of the men die sometimes Odette is forced to live as a swan forever sometimes her death breaks the spell and she chooses to leave Siegfried behind the key feature of the ballet is the performance of both the Swan Queen and the Black Swan two very different roles often Danced by the same dancer and how a dancer portrays either character can make a significant difference to how the audience feels about the production dual roles like these were not often used on stage and if it wasn't done right it could come across as very gimmicky Black Swan draws many parallels to the Tchaikovsky ballet but various elements are subverted and there is a question of which character is which is Jacques the Gallant Prince Siegfried meant to rescue Nina from her sheltered life or is he the devious rothbart who turns a princess into a swan out of pure spite while it may seem apparent that co-star Mila Kunis's character Lily is the Black Swan Nina's journey is for herself to become the Black Swan and there is a suggestion that Lily is not as devious as Nina May perceive her is Nina a Swan Queen transforming into the Black Swan or is she a Black Swan merely masquerading as a Swan Queen the film calls to attention Nina's quest for Perfection and exactly what that means well it's no secret that she may be the best technical dancer in the troupe she lacks the Finesse and freedom that the director is looking for but shouldn't this itself qualify as Perfection if her movement and grace are so archetypal it wouldn't look as good if it came out of a factory how can you criticize someone for being too good what isn't explicitly called to attention in the film is the pragmatic side the business side of dance because art and culture or not these shows need to make money at least to break even because these performances are heavily subsidized by Municipal cultural initiatives but there is still the ego of drawing in a crowd can we say that the bulk of the audience needed to make these shows a success would actively understand the differences between Nina and Lily's portrayal of the Black Swan some of the audience would naturally the dancers would also but the vast majority of show goers would not understand the Nuance that would go into a different portrayal is Jacques degree of scrutiny that necessary it's not a shock to extrapolate that a major theme of this film is opening a discourse about dance in general ballet being particularly toxic the reason why dancers really only have a career into their late 20s is because the human body dissolves into a yarn ball of pain after forcing your muscles to move like this women especially develop degenerative foot problems and sometimes will simply stop growing toenails due to the demand on Dancing On Point which men can rarely do the psychology of dance is also incredibly destructive Eating Disorders being among the least severe consequences if you are cast as a swan a director will treat you like an animal favoritism is given toward the stars and as with Nina the director's favor is not always a boon and Black Swan does poke at the culture of sexual abuse and coercion in the industry as well it is in question whether Jacques is using his position to leverage sexual favors out of hundreds of beautiful girls who will do anything for the part alternately he may be earnestly employing unorthodox and slightly unethical techniques to suss the most out of his dancers but what is clear is that what Jacques wants out of Nina is everything she could possibly have to give the individual is second compared to what she can afford to the show The Troop and most importantly his reputation it's not in question that Jacques is manipulative and emotionally abusive but for girls who have dedicated their lives and bodies to ballet what are they going to do get another job as demonstrated by Nina's mother having a baby is a career killer what other value do these girls have if not to devote their entire existence to Excellence and just how far will they be pushed to meet those demands what do they have to be to even get noticed in the first place what does Perfection really mean what needs to be sacrificed for Perfection why is perfection important to Nina and most importantly why is perfection the bare minimum requirement for her Nina finds herself in a state of existence where if she's not the best then there's just no point to her this is absolutely fostered in part by her mother whose simultaneous greatest pride and deepest fear is that Nina will surpass her potential if her mother was going to sacrifice her career for Nina something she is regularly reminded of the Nina Needs to make that worth it and naturally this is doubled down by the aforementioned work environment and yet to us gays we love Black Swan by the way to us gays we are drawn to this movie Beyond just standing Natalie Portman and Beyond just the magnetic draw to tragic yet fabulous women there's a question about why we would feel such a kindred sense of belonging with a movie about how abusive the dance industry is what drives Nina's quest for Perfection it's something that can easily be dismissed as a compulsion due to her clear untreated mental health issues but the not so Secret Message of Black Swan is that the environment of dance is so toxic that the Perfection is a matter of survival if Perfection is not the goal if you treat this as a nine-to-five job if your life health and whole being are not dedicated to not only meeting expectations but blasting them out of the water then what are you even doing here there are hundreds of other girls who can tow the line what makes you so special granted in this environment Perfection isn't a sliding scale it's a matter of who fits what for which purpose bearing in mind that Lily wasn't even in consideration for the role of the Swan Queen in the first place but her light-hearted demonstrations and rehearsals filled in the blanks that Nina was leaving behind suddenly because Lily can do what Nina struggles with she seems perfect and make no mistake in the world of ballet Details Matter the script isn't being flippant when it highlights just how nuanced Nina's movements need to be to make the cut to this end many Productions of Swan Lake make cast a different dancer for Odette and her doppelganger Odelay a thought that never crosses Jacques mind but where would the world of art and culture be if directors just did the easy thing besides in Productions of the ballet both Odette and Odelay are on stage so little splitting the role in two would defeat the purpose of a prima ballerina historically the role of the Swan Queen is one of the most coveted Center Stage who is she roles in all of Dance splitting the role may as well be sharing the spotlight and for girls who have sacrificed their lives and stepped on whoever they needed to to get here that is not a compliment what Nina represents is a version of perfection but her version is only suited for half the role so she may as well be garbage rather than compliment Nina for her strengths she is criticized for having any flaws at all Black Swan offers a suggestion of what it takes to experience perfection the individual must disappear when you have a collection of young men and women who exist in a career field where family and social lives often interfere with work demands why not demand the best it's not like they have anyone to go home and cook dinner for with nothing else in their lives going on why not demand Perfection but the question I have about this is whether we're putting the cart before the horse is perfection demanded of those who do not have any life outside of their work or do these incredibly demanding yet prestigious careers attract people who have nothing else to live for or rather for those who choose to have nothing else to live for existing within queer circles I've noticed that there can be a great deal expected of us what can we contribute to society if we're not going to be birthing the subsequent generation queer artists usually rise above their contemporaries and are celebrated as the movers and shakers as the voices of their day and age at least [Music] until a plague wipes them out or they're outed at which point nobody wants anything to do with us historically at least even outside of Art we have been found leading the world of business and politics bringing new insights and perspectives again and again until we're outed and for those who enter these worlds here and queer and not able to hide it not only do they have to work harder to overcome social and institutional roadblocks but it's not enough to toe the line they have to make history or they're not worth mentioning in history for instance when we talk about CEOs running gigantic companies we talk about Bezos or musk or Zuckerberg we never talk about Tim Cook the out gay CEO of Apple who oversaw the company literally having more cash on hand than the United States government at one point ever since queer acceptance among parents began to catch on the level of pressure for us to produce adopted or surrogate grandchildren has reached pandemic levels whereas before it was very common to cut ties with intolerant families or for tolerant families to understand the familial limitations afforded to gay couples and individuals perhaps our queer striving for Perfection has derived from a sense of spite rather than guilt if I cannot earn my parents Pride I will make them rule their decision to disown me but now it's if I cannot continue my family's bloodline I will give my family name a legacy what the hell is this house of the Dragon perhaps these sentiments are how this cultural attitude towards queer exceptionalism began but I'm not sure we've rationalize it like that anymore but if we are like Nina queer or queer adjacent as she is is there a striving to be the best at what we do a compulsion or a fostered behavior surely there are many queer people who find themselves perfectly comfortable in a good home with a companion perhaps even children even pets if they're lucky my landlord still won't let me have a dog salty about that these queers have resolved to live a happy life as that branch manager and live out their Legacy by passing it on to their children there are also a number of queer people who are comfortable with meager of survival having left behind traumas and troubles in their youth they're fine doing the best that they can and just happy to not be hated by the people closest to them to say nothing of those who live with debilitating psychological or physical disabilities and for whom survival itself is a struggle for them tends across the board is a bit cruelly unrealistic but it's that attitude 10 10 10 10 across the board which originated from within our community found in the underground ballrooms fashioned from derelict and abandoned corners of heavily populated Urban spaces tucked away where the idol passerby would not notice this attitude that a single nine is an ugly smudge upon your reputation these attitudes developed within our community and were present I imagine long before the ballroom Queens of Poes built their houses to provide surrogate families to Lost queer children for there were always the likes of Oscar Wilde and Tchaikovsky the former worked himself nearly to death even before his criminal sentence so that he could project the illusion of a lavish Gentleman of Leisure and Tchaikovsky lived with debilitating depression his entire life Tchaikovsky especially pushed for that unattainable goal of perfection and while he is now one of the most celebrated composers of the western musical Canon during his own lifetime there was question about whether he was or was not a western composer during his time his home nation of Russia was desperately disconnected from the rest of Europe a strange mix of Slavic honey and Mongolian with a Sprinkle of exotic Traditions like Christian Orthodoxy Russia was an alien place to most of Europe it took german-born Catherine the Great to introduce European ideas to the motherland there is a mild case to argue that Tchaikovsky did the inverse unlike other Russian composers Tchaikovsky adopted European traditionalism into his compositions among audiences his music seemed exotic enough to be enticing yet familiar enough to be recognizable and very very sad to the extent that today like David Bowie or the Rolling Stones you've probably heard a Tchaikovsky Melody even if you don't know that's what it is [Music] unfortunately for him this put pieta in an uncomfortable position critically despite the fact that he introduced Russian conventions into European music Paving the way for musical giants like Stravinsky for the time however Tchaikovsky was in an uncomfortable middle Zone Russian Scholars lampooned him for distancing himself from traditional Russian conventions European scholars felt that he did not follow European standards enough to be intellectually elevated that isn't to say that he did not have allies in either group mind you who lauded his ability to present Russian Aesthetics without resorting to gaulish exoticism while being accessible to westerners ironically Swan Lake was considered a failure when it premiered get this critics felt the original score was too complex to function as ballet accompaniment imagine completely Shifting the culture of music and performance art and everyone around you shrugs and says mid to complex Jesus meanwhile heterosexual and precursor Nazi Richard Wagner was over there making a dog and pony show out of morbid complexity and getting lauded for it [Music] it's the worst when hateful people actually make good art at the very least it puts him in the camp of other composers who produced pieces of music that were initially poorly received which then went on to influence the future of composition Stravinsky's Rite of Spring debussy's symphonic sketches of the sea orbizets Carmen and the entire career of Hector berlios who's so underrated he doesn't even get the last name treatment [Music] Tchaikovsky was never openly gay though there were rumors that he had to dodge for most of his adult life but as a Russian trying to produce music for a European audience he was an outsider nevertheless and when people see you as an outsider there's an immediate barrier they put before you some qualifications of otherness are just more visible but I hear this echoed within the queer Community to an absurd degree these barriers and hurdles and expectations ranging from public speaking contests in high school local craft competitions to watching professionals and Publishing television and other forms of media.
people who go out on a limb and break the mold and then have their bold advancements parroted by a more... conventional creator. who's then credited with flipping the script (or moderately successful gay YouTube creators who get left on read by nebula).
I feel that perhaps we overcompensate for our need to provide ourselves with Legacy we push the limits a bit further than our Scholars and corporate overlords are willing to recognize perhaps because we seek Legacy and Perfection for its own sake or rather like Nina some internalized compulsion we judge the Merit of our craft and art upon its own values rather than the values of the establishment the objective of that generally being this needs to sell this isn't to say that queer people own a monopoly on perfectionism Beethoven and Mozart are also considered perfect however for every Mozart there were 10 nasaliaries who were okay but they were not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart whereas what queer composers can you think of a difficult question provided that being closeted makes a lot of this analysis difficult but when it comes to hearsay there were rumors abound of either Chopin Or List given that they were both Divas who could put Mariah to shame this may very well check out both of them are concerned oh gods a gold standard of admission to music programs with a piano Focus around the world it always comes back to Divas which points to the lingering question at hand do queer people possess an internalized Perfection complex or are we naturally drawn to Artistic fields that favor presentation and provided that those without families often thrive in fields or tangential to show business is this where we find ourselves at home and in Creative Fields especially the best of the best have their pick those in demand will always work that even second or third from the best May struggle that's why the queer Community will lift up the barely talented queers who manage to get the attention of the straight masses the Ellens and Pete's this visibility had been a token of hope that perhaps times were changing for our history of living in the shadows the queer person who makes history they were the exception to the rule the rule being that the world could do without us however the developing landscape of queer rights has afforded other venues of success to queer individuals and sadly it is not greater access to success [Music] there remains an uncomfortable pattern for what queer people need to do to be considered contributive members of society that is for those who chose not to conform to the heteronormative nuclear family pattern of raising children it seems strange to me that causing a cultural shift in pop music or theater or film is celebrated on par with Frank and Bob getting married and approved for adoption they're seen as almost just as remarkable if you can't do one or the other what use are you this is a strange precedent for our conditional acceptance we must conform to the hegemonistic system of Game of Life Milestones to justify our ability to earn our human rights or we must become an icon of success to qualify as a mold-breaking exception to the blanket attitude about queer people isn't it strange that a simple relatively unremarkable milestone for a straight person is now hailed as proof positive of queer success but where do we go after gay marriage in our lives it's unclear because simply living a heteronormative life is regarded as a kind of success as if the more of us enlist in domestic life the greater message we are sending to the CIS hetero hegemony that we do in fact deserve the same that they do which is a bleak way to look at it sure again different floats for different boats but the Straits complain incessantly about home life being the death of personal ambition say nothing of autonomy and they have the benefit of centuries of media providing a range of marital Expressions it seems that there's all this talk Among The Straits about what qualifies as a successful marriage but in queer circles the success of marriage seems to be getting married in the first place but there's that success word again and once more it seems to be an inscription rather than a quality of what's what and for the married gays watching this I am curious do you feel more pressure to remain together than you see among your heterosexual counterparts on the playground there is an indication once more that success is a burying value depending upon who it is describing one would think that success would be the same for both groups gay and straight marriages but I don't think it is it's like qualifying a drag queen on the success of Lady Gaga comparatively Bianca Del Rio or Trixie Mattel have nothing and yet they're considered to be the icons of drag success at least the ones who don't Frack whereas Stephanie has her good years and some off ones but again what is success and is it the same as Perfection like any resource success gains value the more unattainable it is but only to a point if nobody feels successful then it can't be used as a gauge for qualifying one's life or more importantly if success is unattainable then it can't be used as a Sword of Damocles to Lord over people and convince them that accounting is a perfectly fulfilling vocation and maybe it is for some certainly pays well with the right certifications but being an accountant is a Surefire way to have people call you successful in a way that being a truck driver is not regardless of some who genuinely do find truck driving to be the preferable fulfilling lifestyle even if someone does have everything they need from that career and life why the reticence to say that they are successful regardless if they themselves feel like they have succeeded if success is neither a Feeling nor a self-qualification what is it how does success transfer to different careers to different groups of people and for the sake of argument how does queerness fit into it queer people after all struggle to find our place in contemporary society and even in schools of practice or stereotypes say we belong like theater movies art culture dance we still struggle to find visibility using Janelle Monae as an example listening to her discography it is abundantly apparent that she was never in the closet she made a song about how great vaginas were and it was initially read as female empowerment nobody really got the message until she explicitly said the words hey I'm kind of totally bisexual and people wonder why we shove our sexuality in everyone's faces because you will literally refuse to see us if we don't and in spite of the fact that among her fans she is lauded as the it girl for a modern revitalization of music in conjunction with the fact that 80's icon Prince thought she was the greatest thing since jam on toast her musical career is frequently overlooked and even though her style is hallmarked by a blend of rockabilly Soul r b and disco credit for disco revitalization is often given to Dua Lipa who didn't start producing music until years later but Monet is a queer black woman endures additional roadblocks to her own success in spite of her intrinsic need to produce top-tier art show business has only so many seats available it seems and less so for entertainers who are outside the privileged hegemonys expectations is Monet driven to Excellence because that's simply where the bar for her connoisseur ship rests or does she have to work that much harder and produce content that much better than the competition who can pass with mediocre material perhaps the culture's tolerable awareness for women of color in genre music is so narrow that the only way to truly break the mold is to break through it just like seeking the favor of an indifferent director by tormenting yourself with impossible standards just to watch him look the other way what kind of life is that what does that do to someone well living among gay men I find we can be excruciatingly catty with each other demanding unrealistic ideals to the point of being rude and cruel I see groups within the queer Community turn on each other on a dime for not being exemplars of queer Justice it seems we set our own bar very high we must have the best bodies and anyone not spending at least four days a week at the gym need not be invited to the club we must have the best marriages inside the best cookie cutter houses and our children must go to the best exclusive preschools even if we need to take out a loan to get them there our depictions in fiction are lofty moralistic idealistic and ethical to a fault messy queers are few and far between and always criticized with giving the lgbtq community a bad name but this model of perfection we're holding ourselves up to is one that as I mentioned is a mere standard of life for straight people the cultural drive to push us into this nuclear model is one which might diminish us just like straight people who give up on their dreams of being the next David Bowie because their family pressures them into getting a real job I think it's only partially true when they say that we have to put on good appearances to impress The Straits and to justify that we deserve the same rights they do I feel we have internalized our own neurotic Perfection we can't be just like the straights we must be better than them in every way we need to be perfect [Music] suppose that this is a manifestation of privilege I mean it is but this is one that you wouldn't think about a lot of elements of privilege have to be experienced in order to truly understand them it's why the privileged are so ready to deny that privilege exists they may say well everyone has been under pressure now and then but it's not the same as existing in that atmosphere all the time especially from an early age constant exposure to these expectations Force changes in our behavior and thinking privilege also means having the choice to separate oneself from this environment of expectations so sure there are times when we are all expected to push ourselves beyond what we believe we are capable of but there are some of us for whom that's the only way we can be seen at all especially when our only real world icons are exemplars of performance art and perfection not every queer performer can be Freddie Mercury if that's the gold standard for what a queer performer needs to be to be held up alongside Taylor Swift then we're just not going to be represented and this is our struggle with representation in fiction we are often held as exceptional to the point of tokenism because you shouldn't have to be the absolute best at what you do in order to be visible because there's only one person who can be the best at something and it goes for queer people as it does for people of color or even Independent Women who don't want children if being the best at something is the only way that the hegemony is willing to recognize our talent then there are thousands if not millions of queer or people of color or women who will be completely ignored next to the privileged masses you shouldn't need to be perfect to be seen you shouldn't need to feel perfect to be valuable considering what many of us have gone through in life I think still being here is exceptional enough your name may not be in lights yet but someone knows who you are someone cares about you someone wants to see you succeed the Black Swan inside you is only ever going to hold you down hold you back even if others insist that that's the only valuable thing about you but you don't need her when you can be the Swan Queen you were born to be [Applause] [Applause] [Music] thank you
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