The King’s Speech has won Best Film at the Oscars and so Black Swan has been a massive disappointment to me.
Obviously this is because, firstly, it somehow managed to be a dance movie WITHOUT the ballerina being taught to chill out her prissy ways (and maybe even find love?) through some after-school dance lessons from a hip hop dancer living on the wrong side of the tracks.
And secondly, because I bet on it to win, both at the bookmakers and in my artwork.
All my preparation to represent the Oscars had gone into rounding up these black and white swans. As a homage to Black Swan I was going to teach the swans be more passionate and brave, just like the molesty French guy did in Black Swan and with similar teaching methods (by just ordering the swans to forget about technique and instead masturbate a lot).
As time was precious I had to find a way that these swans could represent The King’s Speech instead. Luckily I realised that the English white swans, or ‘Mute’ Swans, could be used to represent King Colin and his stuttering ways.
Mute swans are called Mute because they are less vocal than other swans. Their poor voices have even led to the myth of a ‘swan song’, the Mute swan’s first and final beautiful song it sings just before dying. This has also been used to describe an actor’s final performance of their career, leading me to wonder if Colin Firth is planning a retirement announcement soon. But this would seem ridiculous given his sudden awards success!
The Mute Swan’s closest relatives are these Black Swan which are found in Australia. They have no speech problem and instead utter a far reaching bugle-like sound that is often mistaken for a feisty Antipodean speech therapist with no respect for monarchy or tradition, much like Geoffrey Rush in the film!
I also found that Mute Swans are usually gentle but are very defensive of their nest, particularly from World War II Nazi threats. And amazingly, Mute Swans were given Royal Status in the 12th Century, almost as though the monarchs of old KNEW one of their descendants would one day be contesting a Swan Lake ballet film for the Best Oscar.
This would mean they also predicted the advent of cinema which is, quite frankly, astounding.
So now I had established the clear link between black and white swans and The King’s Speech, I set about training the Mute swans to become better public speakers, using all my Aussie charm and lack of respect for authority.
Unfortunately the swans were quite confused after my weeks of ballet training (that was so heavily focussed on my repeating in a French accent “go ‘ome and touch yourself”). They didn’t understand why we were switching from ballet to public speaking and refused to watch my recording of the Oscars to understand (they resented the furore over Ricky Gervais hosting the Globes so were very anti awards shows).
I realised I needed to regain the swans’ trust. I researched EVEN more, sometimes delving as far as the SECOND paragraph in several Wikipedia articles.
I discovered that when swans were given royal status, this made eating them an issue of getting permission from the Queen herself. It led to a practice known as ‘swan upping’. I tried to clarify what this involved but after already ordering the swans to masturbate heavily this sounded like too much to put them through.
After some time, however, I was finally beginning to feel progress.
Unfortunately I turned my back for just a couple of hours and immediately a hip hop dancer from the rough side of town snuck into our studio. He only did one sexy dance with the swans but it immediately taught them that not only can ballet and hip hop exist together but their combination can make you feel more alive then you ever have! And it makes the dance routine even more current/late 1990s!
I had completely lost the prissy swans to his urban charm.
It seems, unlike ballet and hip hop, the Oscars and swans do not mix. Just ask Bjork who had that one try to strangle her one year. Though she’s probably sick of swan ballet/hip hop questions.