Criticism is one of the biggest parts about being a Creative. I know, I know: it sucks. Sadly, the harsh reality of the Art Industry-- whether that be illustrative, literature, photography or filmography, is that you are commodifying a part of yourself. This, for many people, including myself, can be a very jarring and uncomfortable experience. An uncomfortable experience that you have to get very comfortable with very quickly.
What's even more discomforting that commodifying the great many things that live inside your head dear Creative, is the concept that the things, or "product" that you have brought into the world from the idea inside your head-- can now be judged. Not just by one person, but by many. They can be analyzed, taken out of context, misinterpreted, reinterpreted and consumed, by the viewer or reader.
The key to mitigating the potential for harsh feedback and awful misinterpretation of your goals (for of course, we always have goals or a message to go along with our art. Otherwise, what's the point?), is to expose your art to a controlled audience first.
It doesn't matter necessarily if this controlled audience are just friends, family, or total strangers you gather from a preexisting online following. The point is that they help you assess you future target audience. From their feedback you can pull and gather necessary data to establish things like your target demographic, the aesthetics, and other stylistic features of your work that appeal to whichever group of people. From here you can curate your work towards a target more effectively, or you may decide you want to take one (or a groups) advice and perhaps you change your whole approach. This would be especially true if you are going for a "collection" style project which contains pieces with similar or a continuous theme.
In other cases, you may wish to curate your beta audience to include a specific minority group if you plan on representing themes that you yourself may not be well versed in. This would be a sensitivity audience that should not be afraid to call you out if you are misrepresenting an aspect of them-- whether that be culture, nationality, race, religion, gender identity or sexuality. This is especially important with the rise of cancel culture. Should you mess up with representing these important stories that deserve to be told the right way, you may not get another chance to redeem yourself.
It could be a good idea if you are a writer, to add in a foreword to clarify your intention beforehand. This will be my approach when I finally publish "Eternity", as I am representing a character of Chinese-French background, who also happens to be a trans-man. These are extremely important aspects of his personality and represents minority groups that I am not part of. Thus, I've worked very closely with two of my friends, a trans-man and Chinese immigrant to a western nation specifically, in order to do justice to not just my character, but to my audience that may identify with him. It is extremely important not to rely on stereotypes for this, as you character will end up seeming shallow at best, and at worst will show your internalized biases (it's okay, we all have them, the point is to keep doing better and calling yourself out) which likely won't go over well with people who come searching for good representation. If you don't have friends who are of the group you are wanting to represent, I would recommend putting a call out over your social media platform in order to find someone you can work with. My absolute last resort would be to use papers and extensive research (from a first-hand account). This is a risky approach as there is still a great potential for you to misinterpret experiences you are not privy to and may lead to misunderstandings further along the line.
This is not to put anyone off representing minority characters, as it is extremely important to continue on our current path of sharing the untold stories of people who are disenfranchised or commonly misrepresented by the dominant western society. However, it is also important to ensure those of us of standard western backgrounds are doing the best we can to uphold a high standard of accuracy rather than falling into the traps of stereotypes or misrepresentation which can further hold back progress we make towards acceptance.
If you are planning on representing minority characters or exploring sensitive themes, be sure to do your due diligence and find some sensitivity readers to include in your beta audience. The more the merrier!
Love,
Adira R
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