I have a slight obsession with David Bowie. If you know me (or happen to have seen me on a dating app that I won’t name here), you already know this. “Rebel Rebel” has become my own personal anthem, reminding me to stay authentic in my unique wants and needs, especially when it seems like I’m marching to the beat of my own drum.

Out of all the rock stars that shot to stardom in the 1970s, Bowie inspired me most. Born David Jones, Bowie wasn’t always this unabashedly confident. With help from his androgynous and flamboyant alter ego Ziggy Stardust (and later, Aladdin Sane and The Thin White Duke), he went on to create not only some of the most prolific records of all time but also empowered the use of on-stage personas to live boldly.

That’s why it pains me to say that the new Bowie biopic Stardust, directed by Gabriel Range, offers only a lukewarm glimpse at the early life of this extraordinary, complex artist. (To be fair, it’s hard to capture the historical rise of Ziggy Stardust in 109 minutes, and nearly impossible to execute it successfully without including a single David Bowie song. What made Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman mainstream hits was the fact that they actually played the hits, literally. More on that here.)

But even though Stardust isn’t the praiseworthy nod to an icon that I hoped it would be, it gave me the opportunity to meditate on the many masks we all wear in different aspects of our life, and specifically the question: would having an “alter ego” help me to live more confidently?

“People don’t want records that make them think,” says one music businessman to a 24-year-old Bowie (Johnny Flynn) in one of the film’s early scenes. Haphazardly embarking on a tumultuous U.S. tour to promote his latest record, “The Man Who Sold the World,” Bowie never tries to fit his eccentric-ness into any box, let alone abide by rigid American standards. Much to the frustration of Mercury Records publicist Rob Oberman (Marc Maron), Bowie publicly flaunts his admiration for women’s clothes, sexual freedom, and living unapologetically. Even as an unknown musician at the time, he didn’t let his insecurity and differentness hold him back.

Reinventing himself as Ziggy Stardust gave him the platform to be someone else. Ziggy wasn’t someone whose chaotic family life and history of mental illness felt like baggage. Ziggy wasn’t a poor bloke from Brixton, London, dealing with the madness of being a struggling musician. Ziggy Stardust was already a superstar.

This is, to me, what makes David Bowie one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. He normalized the alter-ego to make artistic expression easier. Through the creation of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie proved that we are in control of our own success. We are the only ones with the power to live our lives as boldly as we want to. The only thing most of us lack is the confidence to unleash it.