florence foster jenkins and the misplaced angers of the world











https://youtu.be/HszfdNS0JSc

there once was a lady who really wanted to sing. so she put her best effort and sang.
and years later (now75 years after her death), she is mostly remembered- through people laughing and ridiculing her life.

i dont really get the ridicule she receives. it is what we would equate as 'personal projects' today, and as such, people can either take it or leave it. she loved singing so much that she pursued it as seriously as she could, and created outputs which no one's forced to take, yet so many people take such joy pointing finger at 'how bad she is.'

honestly, how many of us wouldve put in that much effort into a 'passion project?' so much schaudenfreuden from bitter average/below-average human beings- this is what i see.

i tried watching the movie with meryl streep, but i couldnt finish it. it just hurt so much to watch things falling apart. people taking whatever they can take away from her, giving her false opinions, only to turn around and continue their mockery and contempt.  if there was something to point fingers at, it was people around her, the ones who lied and mocked her (i can kinda understand the ones who decided to 'white lie,' but that would require them to not to take advange of FFJ).

someone posted FFJ singing from youtube on social media, and it made me think how most of us are, by definition, would be just average or slightly below- for instance, to bring steven hawkings down to average, he would have to be dragged really far down, if we are to talk about intelligence.  and for one single usain bolt, it will take a few grans with walkers to bring the average human speed for 100m dash down, and so on and so forth.

and it's not a bad thing to acknowledge that we are, after all, likely to be in the middle of the pack. middle of the pack is important. it defines the pack itself.  and that it is okay to trust the excellent 2% who will lead the pack out from the great dangers and unnecessary troubles, and to acknowledge that there will also be that popular 52% vs 48% ratio in the population (or something close to that), and that in certain things, a small subgroup can really damage everyone as well...


anyhow, i digress, but i just wonder what goes on in the mind of people when they point fingers at someone like FFJ with smoking anger and hatred toward her. if only the 'excellent' would survive, most of us wont even be here. eliticism is dangerous and little knowledge even more so.

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