"I didn't care too much for ballet, because you had to be more disciplined, and you sort of looked like everyone else. It required a certain kind of conformity that I didn't feel like I wanted to do"
About this Quote
Farrell is puncturing the prettified myth of ballet as pure self-expression by naming what insiders know: the art is built on discipline so strict it can feel like self-erasure. The sting in her line is the phrase "looked like everyone else" - not a casual complaint about costumes, but an indictment of ballet's aesthetic project. It prizes uniformity of line, turnout, and even temperament. Individuality is permitted only after you've proven you can disappear into the template.
The subtext is less "I dislike hard work" than "I refuse the bargain". Ballet offers transcendence, but it often asks for conformity first: identical bodies, identical training, identical obedience. Farrell frames this as a personal choice, but the undertow is cultural. Mid-20th-century American ballet was busy professionalizing itself, importing European hierarchies and codifying taste - a world where being "disciplined" could mean being shaped, monitored, and sorted.
Coming from a dancer, the comment lands as both confession and critique. She isn't dismissing ballet's rigor; she's exposing its social function. Discipline becomes a gatekeeping language, a way to decide who belongs and who gets to be seen. When she says she "didn't feel like I wanted to do" that conformity, she's asserting that artistry can be a form of resistance - that a dancer's identity isn't just an instrument to be tuned, but a voice that can choose not to blend.
It's a quietly radical stance in a field that sells sameness as beauty.
The subtext is less "I dislike hard work" than "I refuse the bargain". Ballet offers transcendence, but it often asks for conformity first: identical bodies, identical training, identical obedience. Farrell frames this as a personal choice, but the undertow is cultural. Mid-20th-century American ballet was busy professionalizing itself, importing European hierarchies and codifying taste - a world where being "disciplined" could mean being shaped, monitored, and sorted.
Coming from a dancer, the comment lands as both confession and critique. She isn't dismissing ballet's rigor; she's exposing its social function. Discipline becomes a gatekeeping language, a way to decide who belongs and who gets to be seen. When she says she "didn't feel like I wanted to do" that conformity, she's asserting that artistry can be a form of resistance - that a dancer's identity isn't just an instrument to be tuned, but a voice that can choose not to blend.
It's a quietly radical stance in a field that sells sameness as beauty.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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