The Great Acting Blog: “Being Bullet-Proof To Criticism”
If somebody says they hate a piece of work of yours, that doesn’t necessarily mean they hate everything you’ve ever done or will do. It just means that they hated that certain piece of work. Most people would give your work another chance in future. Criticism should be kept in perspective then, there is no reason to ring the alarm bells.
Similarly, we cannot go around pandering to people or worrying about the reaction of every single member of the audience. That way lies the loony bin.
The solace here is that we can afford to be bolder in our creative choices, we can afford to be radical. We needn’t churn out generic pap in the hope that it would be offensive to nobody. No, we can be confident in taking our own path, in making provocative idiosyncratic work, in being innovative, in having fun with our work instead of fretting about potential criticism of it. If certain people say it is not for them, then good luck to them and hopefully they will like the next thing we do. But by doing truly artistic work we will always put some people’s noses out of joint, that’s the nature of art. For some others however, our work will speak to them, and a true connection will be made. The best way forward though, is to make work for ourselves and send it out into the world strong enough to stand on it’s own two feet. Only once we have accepted a piece work for ourselves, will it become bullet-proof to criticism.
