The Perfect Boy Myth is a film written and directed by Liberté Grace. This first film project for Grace represents a collaboration between over 100 creatives from Australia, Los Angeles, New York, London, and Bulgaria; brought together to tell the story of the myth at heart of racism, and its connection to the fairy tales we still tell children today.

When Grace was 24, she asked the question “Why does Racism still exist?” The answer is simple: We keep re-telling the same stories that embolden false and seductive notions of power. Racism and Sexism are merely excuses to exercise power over others, even though, at their heart; these notions have no actual basis in reality. It’s not that we don’t understand that those attitudes are false. It’s that, people use them to feel a sense of hierarchy over others.

Until the stories we tell change; we are bound to repeat them. The only way to move beyond any story is to realise that it is a false fantasy and to tell entirely new stories from different perspectives. This helps to correct the imbalance of power - throughout the world.

The Perfect Boy Myth remains as relevant to the current sociopolitical climate as ever. The charisma of the age-old story of the dark vs. the light continues to proliferate; promoting false ‘prophets’ into positions of power, using the engine of humanity’s primordial fears.

This is the premise of the deceptively simple narrative of The Perfect Boy Myth, which won the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize in 2013 and was selected to showcase in the Art Basel film sector in 2015.

This production still from the work is by Thomas Dicker.

The Orphans from Joyvolution on Vimeo.