{"id":369881,"date":"2021-11-16T17:04:23","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T14:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/"},"modified":"2021-11-16T17:04:23","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T14:04:23","slug":"why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"#Why C\u00e9line Dion is what we all need right now"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23e9493b3ec\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a23e9493b3ec\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/#Celine_loves%E2%80%A6\" >C\u00e9line loves\u2026<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/#Celine_loves%E2%80%A6-2\" >C\u00e9line loves\u2026<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/#Celine_loves%E2%80%A6-3\" >C\u00e9line loves\u2026<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Why C\u00e9line Dion is what we all need right now<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1229647\" style=\"width: 2810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1229647 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-01.jpg\" alt=\"Dion during her performance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Feb. 28, 2020 (Nina Westervelt\/The New York Times\/Redux Pictures)\" width=\"2800\" height=\"1867\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dion during her performance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Feb. 28, 2020 (Nina Westervelt\/The New York Times\/Redux Pictures)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cYou can say no, but do you mind if I turn on my C\u00e9line Dion playlist?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I hear this, I am face-down, shirtless and instantly ecstatic. The context isn\u2019t an uncommonly successful date, but my first massage in a long while. It is February 2020, the previous few months have been an uncharacteristically harrowing interpersonal time I very much hope to purge from my muscle memory, and I don\u2019t know it yet, but lockdown (the first one) is less than a month away.<\/p>\n<p>During the opening notes of Because You Loved Me\u2014\u201ca jam,\u201d per my new RMT\u2014a stubborn knot near my right trapezius unglues, and I sob quietly for the next 50 minutes. Harmeet is gifted, but I know from a lifetime of experience who is really responsible for this.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0C\u00e9line Dion, and why it\u2019s all working out for her now\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I have a vivid memory of when C\u00e9line Dion entered my life\u2014and not just because of the aggressively yellow branding of the Cambridge, Ont.-area Hy &amp; Zel\u2019s checkout where my mom impulse-bought The Colour of My Love. I was just shy of seven, and the Charlemagne, Que., native was still unaware that her supernatural mezzo-soprano would spawn a 40-year career, 27 studio albums, two Vegas residencies, an abundance of critical eye-rolling and endless Saturday Night Live impressions. At that point, she hadn\u2019t even married Ren\u00e9.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1229648\" style=\"width: 2810px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1229648 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-02.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2800\" height=\"1867\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dion has achieved a reciprocal empathy with fans around the world (Marc Piasecki\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Track one\u2014on the album and for me\u2014was The Power of Love, the vocal crescendo of which sounds like a human woman instantaneously shapeshifting into a shredded electric guitar. Her delivery is the reason I\u2019m still enamoured with C\u00e9line Dion in 2021: she unselfconsciously expressed the outsized things I felt internally, and at the same relative amplitude.<\/p>\n<p>As a species, we\u2019ve been through a lot these past, well, years, and undoubtedly we have plenty to get off our chests\u2014ideally face to face. A good cry, or a primal scream, would be nice, perhaps delivered in unison, middle fingers raised to the plague. With a just-announced documentary in the pipeline, a recently released (unauthorized) biopic called Aline dividing critics the world over and an anthemic gum commercial celebrating our reintroduction to high-contact society, perhaps C\u00e9line heard our clarion call for emotional release. I\u2019m biased, but I\u2019d say we\u2019ve never needed her more.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0The best (and wackiest) photos of C\u00e9line Dion, Canada\u2019s beloved pop queen\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>It seems egotistical to lay claim to a uniquely sensitive disposition when empathy is, at least in theory, a factory setting for humanity. But the older I get, and the more people I meet, I feel it\u2019s safe to say that some of us are just born porous. Some canonical proof: in video footage of my third birthday, my demeanour can best be described as \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d while the other kids excitedly await <em>my<\/em> cake reveal. My parents were careful to choose their moments when playing musicals, lest their operatic quality turn me and my brother into tiny, puddly messes. \u201cNoticing things\u201d was an extreme sport. Like most teens, before bed I would turn on my parents\u2019 boombox and ruminate on my crush\u2019s utter indifference to my existence. Unlike most teens, however, my go-to was <em>Water from the Moon<\/em>, the fifth single off Dion\u2019s second English-language studio album\u2014and I was eight.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>RELATED:\u00a0And the greatest C\u00e9line Dion song ever is\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until my late 20s that it occurred to me that I might not simply be garden-variety anxious or \u201cartistic,\u201d but an empath. It\u2019s a term used by some millennials as a chic way to say they\u2019re codependent, but it is, in actuality, an experience increasingly defined in clinical settings\u2014namely, a person so highly attuned to the emotions of others that they feel them in their own body. There are upsides, like rich friendships and deep insights. There are downsides, too: to this day, <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>s to the mall can feel tantamount to a personal attack, and I\u2019ve never understood the concept of a single tear. With some egregious exceptions, I have a gut-deep sense for when people are lying. (Internally, it feels like someone strummed a C chord and an F came out.) I\u2019ve never felt that dissonance from C\u00e9line Dion.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t exactly adhere to the all-encompassing blood-oath expectations of contemporary music fandoms: I know all of her B-sides, including the French ones, but you will never hear me sing them out loud. I won\u2019t be indiscriminately stockpiling gender-neutral onesies from Dion\u2019s children\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>arel line, Celinununu, for the kids I don\u2019t have. I will not be planning a car tour of her siblings\u2019 properties, and, while I\u2019m sorry to see Dion\u2019s reupped Vegas residency postponed, I would not have attended: I\u2019ve always feared I might physically react to a live rendition of <em>All by Myself <\/em>the way a glass dish reacts to a microwave: with a loud \u201cpouf,\u201d followed by an im<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a>te shattering.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #9db0d0; padding: 20px;\">\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Celine_loves%E2%80%A6\"><\/span>C\u00e9line loves\u2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<div id=\"attachment_1230010\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1230010 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-03.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"346\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Michel Ponomareff\/Ponopress\/Gamma-Rapho\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><small><strong>\u201cCe n\u2019e\u0301tait qu\u2019un re\u0302ve,\u201d<\/strong> a song co-written by Dion with her mother, The\u0301re\u0300se, and her brother Jacques when Dion was 12. In 2004, Dion told Oprah Winfrey it\u2019s one of her favourites.<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p>Listening to C\u00e9line Dion\u2014and later mainlining interviews and documentaries\u2014was my introduction to the parasocial relationship between entertainer and entertained, and what compelled me was our seeming temperamental sameness. She was a sort of vibrational mirror, except Quebec\u2019s favourite daughter bounced those tidal-wave feelings right back at the world, trading mainly in cinematic notions of love. She literally named her Laval, Que.-based production company Feeling Inc. She cried onstage, and people cried with her. She didn\u2019t look burdened; she looked powerful.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this effusiveness made her immediately suspect to music critics, who are coolly detached by profession. Despite her five Grammy wins, every one of Dion\u2019s albums has been met with at least a modicum of industry derision. The typical chorus claimed that she was too overwrought or sentimental; one critic described 2004\u2019s <em>A New Day Has Come <\/em>as \u201ca lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter.\u201d On the odd record where her emotions weren\u2019t at their trademark full bore, she was accused of pandering to the lowest common denominator\u2014or, weirdly enough, being tonally insensitive. (One writer lambasted her foray into \u201cEDM and AutoTune frippery\u201d on 2018\u2019s <em>Courage<\/em>, an album on which she processed the loss of her husband.)<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s Carl Wilson was the rare critic who interrogated his own knee-jerk skepticism, resulting in <em>Let\u2019s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste<\/em>, a widely referenced examination of the star\u2019s polarizing persona and what gets to be \u201ccool.\u201d In the book, Wilson writes, \u201cHer music struck me as bland monotony raised to a pitch of obnoxious bombast\u2014R&amp;B with the sex and slyness surgically removed, French <em>chanson<\/em> severed from its wit and soul . . . Oprah Winfrey-approved chicken soup for the consumerist soul, a neverending crescendo of personal affirmation deaf to social conflict and context.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0C\u00e9line Dion and the undeniable power of love\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>On the phone from his home in Toronto in late September, Wilson\u2019s tone has no such edge. \u201cIt\u2019s that demonstrativeness that inspires so much affection for her,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike fellow divas\u2014including Madonna, with whom she has shared the \u201cQueen of Pop\u201d superlative\u2014Dion\u2019s ability to stay in our hearts doesn\u2019t hinge on compulsive rebranding along with whatever\u2019s currently <em>de rigueur<\/em>. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t age in the same way as a lot of artists that are 20 years past their peak,\u201d Wilson says. \u201cHer cartoonish persona really keeps her seeming vivid. And she\u2019s not really putting herself in a position to look dated by aiming to keep herself in the charts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dion\u2019s ability to channel the oft-closeted \u201cextraness\u201d of the human experience in song is especially pronounced in the current musical landscape, which seems reflective of our Bezosian desire to keep moving and keep consuming without too much of a mental tax on ourselves. In 2021, who has the bandwidth?<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #9db0d0; padding: 20px;\">\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Celine_loves%E2%80%A6-2\"><\/span>C\u00e9line loves\u2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<div id=\"attachment_1230012\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1230012 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"367\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(@CelineDion\/Instagram)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><small><strong>Shoes.<\/strong> In a \u201cCarpool Karaoke\u201d appearance, Dion told The Late Late Show\u2019s James Corden that she has 10,000 pairs of shoes. He made her give some away. Not these ones, though, which were commissioned for Dion and made by Toronto set designer Caitlin Doherty.<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p>This might explain the recent doubling-down on interpolation, a royalty-rich, Frankensteinian practice of repurposing an existing song\u2019s composition in service of new output. On <em>Sour<\/em>, the year\u2019s biggest debut, Olivia Rodrigo cribs from multiple pop-rock heavyweights: Taylor Swift, Paramore and Elvis Costello. Even Drake, the self-described <em>Certified Lover Boy <\/em>who popularized being \u201cin our feelings\u201d and once announced his intention to tattoo Dion\u2019s face on his body, appears to derive most of his emotional clout from wearing soft sweaters and endless mentions of his mom. In many ways, music now feels a lot like A.I.: it appears to possess a human soul, but it doesn\u2019t, really.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>RELATED:\u00a0The new conductor of Montreal\u2019s famous orchestra \u2018looks like fun but sounds like business\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Coming off four years of the worst presidency ever, a racial reckoning, a plague that sent us all to our rooms and spawned a new strain of depression and the constant threat of almost certain environmental doom, we\u2019re all in desperate need of a healing, cohesive cultural experience. For her ability to capitalize on what were once widely regarded as her biggest liabilities\u2014unsettlingly sustained vulnerability and chronicling life\u2019s highest-impact moments in an easily digestible format\u2014 C\u00e9line Dion is the musical defibrillator for this exact moment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a fine line between affected and afflicted, and I sometimes think Dion\u2019s secret to success, both personally and professionally, is her ability to exist in perpetual catharsis. Wilson seems to agree. \u201cShe\u2019s not speaking to [how] people feel in any precise way,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s more that she\u2019s modelling someone who is \u2018in her feelings,\u2019 and externalizing them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dion extends herself outward to us in a few ways. The first is, obviously, through her voice\u2014which, when listened to at high registers, can feel like you\u2019re being shot in the chest through the ear. She\u2019s the rare entertainer whose vocals are frequently compared to an actual instrument\u2014a numinous sound that\u2019s simultaneously tender and not at all gentle, which Dion cultivates with an appropriately religious dedication to special diets, exercises and silence.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0How well do you know C\u00e9line Dion?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The next is her relentlessly warm, cornball nature\u2014one you\u2019d think is a stage gimmick if you\u2019d never clocked its spillover into her promotional interviews. High fives, crossed eyes and entirely spontaneous childlike bursts of song are all regular parts of Dion\u2019s campy rapport-building strategy. It\u2019s her flamboyance and affinity for physical comedy that make her a fit with the gold-plated tomfoolery of the Las Vegas strip, where she\u2019ll eventually return for a 10-show run timed to the 25th anniversary of <em>Falling Into You<\/em>. It\u2019s her first without Ren\u00e9 Ang\u00e9lil\u2019s inscrutable gaze overseeing things, but since his death, she\u2019s been spotted sporting a suitably glittery cap that reads \u201cBoss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While there are endless examples of Dion\u2019s distance from the average person\u2014her televised wedding at Montreal\u2019s Notre-Dame Basilica; the camels at her vow-renewal ceremony; her 10,000-strong shoe collection\u2014her bombast makes her the perfect surrogate to produce art about the high-level themes that touch all of us. The organizing principle of Dion\u2019s <em>oeuvre<\/em> is unquestionably romantic love, and all of its attendant desperation and complications, even though she herself only ever dated one person (her manager), and later entered into a multi-decade fairytale marriage with him.<\/p>\n<p>When Dion sings about relationships, she resorts to the same delusionally passionate absolutes we all privately hold, just out loud: when someone reaches for her, she does all that she can (<em>The Power of Love<\/em>); when she\u2019s sorry, she\u2019s sorry for the rest of her life (<em>Sorry for Love<\/em>); and when she surrenders, she surrenders everything (<em>I Surrender<\/em>).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0A\u00a0children\u2019s book about traditional drumming \u2018feels like coming full circle\u2019 to this Indigenous author\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But she\u2019s also the rare artist who can carry off songs about love in the larger, Greek sense: <em>agape<\/em>, the kind shared among all the members of our species. Dion regularly dips into universal topics like children\u2019s welfare (<em>Prayer<\/em>), motherhood (<em>The Greatest Reward<\/em>), the wound of human division (<em>Where Is the Love<\/em>) and feeling S.O.L. (<em>Rain, Tax (It\u2019s Inevitable)<\/em>). Perhaps this is why her music tends to be the preferred sonic backdrop at gatherings where overt displays of emotion are met with approval rather than judgment: funerals, weddings, drag shows, large sporting events and karaoke performances. The kind most of us haven\u2019t enjoyed in a while.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Let\u2019s Talk About Love<\/em>, Wilson cites a study commissioned by Dion\u2019s label in the mid-2000s that revealed that her fans are distributed across all income brackets. Though her releases are close to an even English-French split, she\u2019s also recorded in Spanish, Italian, German and even Mandarin.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #9db0d0; padding: 20px;\">\n<h4><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Celine_loves%E2%80%A6-3\"><\/span>C\u00e9line loves\u2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<div id=\"attachment_1230011\" style=\"width: 437px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-sizes=\"auto\" class=\"wp-image-1230011 lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-04.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"427\" height=\"596\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Sam Levi\/WireImage\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><small><strong>Golf.<\/strong> In 1997, Dion and her husband, Rene\u0301 Ange\u0301lil, purchased a golf club where they hosted the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Engelbert Humperdinck and Muhammad Ali.<\/small>\n<\/div>\n<p>Dion is a businesswoman who\u2019s aware that her greatest strength lies in bonding en masse. When you venture to form genuine connections by the millions\u2014even if that\u2019s by making people sob uncontrollably to the <em>Titanic<\/em> soundtrack\u2014an awful lot of people seem to open their hearts to you in return.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0Bingeing into the 21st century with artist Douglas Coupland\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>At no point was this more evident than in the period following the death of her husband from throat cancer in 2016. Breathless media coverage was dedicated to Ang<em>\u00e9<\/em>lil\u2019s funeral\u2014televised, like their wedding\u2014and whether or not bereavement was leaving Dion too thin. At the time, I was working at a women\u2019s magazine, and the moment the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> hit Twitter, the office went silent. Later that day, as I travelled across downtown Toronto in an Uber, the driver turned around to me at a stoplight and said, with a sincerity that\u2019s painful to recall, \u201cI just want her to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">***<\/p>\n<p>It can be difficult, if not impossible, to be deeply invested while perceiving everything acutely all the time. As a journalist, I am contractually obligated to pay attention, but as a sensitive, bisexual woman living through whatever\u2019s happening on Earth in 2021, I\u2019ve learned to be selective about which people and which newsfeed disasters I de-armour for. Despite being, in many ways, the consummate performer, Dion has always managed to achieve a reciprocal empathy with her fans that is\u2014to myself and millions of others around the world\u2014both unavoidable and aspirational. She leverages a quality that is paradoxically lonely, and yet moves us all.<\/p>\n<p>Conversations around vulnerability have evolved by light years since I first lifted my mom\u2019s grocery store CD, to the point where\u2014as Carl Wilson joked to me\u2014the world \u201chas finally aged into [C\u00e9line].\u201d In 2015, queer American artist Lora Mathis coined the phrase \u201cradical softness as a weapon,\u201d which is the idea that, in a society that considers emotion a weakness, sharing your heart is an inherently political stance.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ: Blown away: Glassblowing\u2019s blazing hot moment on Netflix\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The idea that C\u00e9line Dion is subversive in any way sounds patently ridiculous, unless you share in the belief that many of our current (and stickiest) collective messes can be boiled down to a reckless, narcissistic dissociation from others and the planet. And at a point where something (anything) unifying would go a long way, Dion\u2019s particular skill set\u2014delivering sonic hits of oxytocin while thumping her chest and yelling \u201cShall we go for it?\u201d\u2014seems pretty damn heroic.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no coincidence that one of this year\u2019s most celebrated commercial spots\u2014an Extra gum ad titled \u201cFor When It\u2019s Time\u201d that imagines a euphoric return to normal\u2014is backed by one of Dion\u2019s most unrestrained singles. Zoom-free meetups, haircuts, public makeouts: they\u2019re all coming back to us now. Who else would know that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve needed to hear?<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>This essay appears in print in the December 2021 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s <em>magazine with the headline, \u201cComing back to us now.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/secure.macleans.ca\/loc\/MME\/head_subscribe\">here<\/a>.<\/em><br \/>\n<span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/culture\/why-celine-dion-is-what-we-all-need-right-now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Why C\u00e9line Dion is what we all need right now&#8221; Dion during her performance at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Feb. 28, 2020 (Nina Westervelt\/The New York Times\/Redux Pictures) \u201cYou can say no, but do you mind if I turn on my C\u00e9line Dion playlist?\u201d When I hear this, I am face-down, shirtless and instantly&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CELINE-DION-UNDERWOOD-OCT20-01-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67899,77401,67806,23260,39579,119847],"class_list":["post-369881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-arts","tag-celine-dion","tag-editors-picks","tag-essays","tag-music","tag-pop-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}