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Margo Jefferson

Margo Jefferson Biography

Critic

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“You are a single woman; you intend to remain one. You’ve acquired enough sexual experience to feel you belong to your times. You do not have children; you never intended to. Sustained romantic intensities have not been for you. Your explanation (not an untrue one,though not quite sufficient) is that you have let yourself be shaped by so many conventions, expectations, and requirements (institution’s, people’s), by so much dread of disapproval, that the discipline of solitude—severe solitude—has been required to give you the sense of an independent selfhood. The intensities of friendship suit you better. Friendship’s choreography is for multiple partners: for varied groups and surprisingly sustained duets.”

IdentityIndependenceBeing Single
Book:Negroland
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“Depression isn't the almighty ruler of your destiny. Even its familiar traits - grief, anger, despair - you find that you can use in other ways. I can create with them in my writing and my life, mix them up with excitement and pleasure. I can name that terrible, numbing paralysis and know it will pass.”

KnowsWayWritingI CanUseNamesPleasureGriefDestinyTerribleDespairFamiliarExcitementTraitsRulersAlmightyOur DestinyYour DestinyParalysisNumbing
Author:Margo Jefferson
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“The world I grew up in had both a literal and mythological quality. We were on the borders of several worlds - the larger black world bordered us on one side. More distantly, there was the larger white world. We interacted with some, but not others. If you think of it as an internal geography, it is a land, a contested space with these very charged historical, cultural, and emotional borders.”

ThinkingWorldBlackQualityEmotionalHistoricalGeography
Author:Margo Jefferson
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“We talk about how we think, believe, suspect Michael Jackson treats children. We don't talk about how WE treat child stars. Child stars are abused by the culture. And what's more treacherous than when the rewards of child stardom issue from the abuse? Child stars are performers above all else. Whenever their triumps, they are going to make sure we see everyone of their scars. That's the final price of admission.”

ThinkingBelieveChildrenCultureStarsIssuesTreatsAbuseRewardsFinalsSuspectsPerformersScarAdmissionTreacherousStardom
Author:Margo Jefferson
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“No one expects a Broadway musical comedy to be in the vanguard of what is bohemian, raunchy, folkloric, academic or aggressively experimental. That is not its job. Its job is to synthesize musical and social traditions with high-styled vivacity, especially those that dwell on different sides of the tracks in real life. The highbrow meets the lowbrow; sweet meets hot; uptown, downtown, all around the town.”

DifferentRealJobsSocialSidesComedySweetTraditionTownsHotMusicalTrackReal LifeAcademicBroadwayDowntownBohemianDifferent SidesVanguardVivacityBroadway MusicalUptownLowbrow
Author:Margo Jefferson
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