The Great Acting Blog: “The Ultimate Humiliation”
Humiliation is kissing the ass of someone who has threatened us in order to please them. The most common example of this of course, is the employer, who says “unless you do a b and c, you’re out”. Humiliation kicks in when the threat is unjust –Â if our work is incompetent, then of course we should be canned, but otherwise it’s simply an exercise of power. It’s common in aesthetic matters, which is so often a question of opinion, or of how “marketable” someone with the power of patronage believes the work to be. It’s a thumbs up or thumbs down scenario, lacking the certainties that something like sport enjoys, so a negative judgement can seem unjust.
Do you change the work to please this so called outside eye? If you do, and they still don’t like it, do you continue to alter your work until they give it a thumbs-up? At which point do we say enough is enough? At which point is the work so changed that it ceases to carry any meaning?
What is the personal cost of continually trying to please someone who hates our work?
Or do we not change our work at all and instead fight for the culture we want to be a part of? Are we willing to defend our art whenever it comes under attack? Are we willing to stand our ground?
Inevitably, such an independent stance will lead to criticism and make life materially more difficult for ourselves than just caving and meeting the demands of our critics.
However, we cannot say that we are independent thinkers if we do not defend that independence when it comes under attack. We cannot say that we are people of integrity if we act without it when the opportunity to do so is offered to us. We cannot say we are principled if we abandon those principles during a moment of strife.
We are fighting for an idea. To offer our surrender of that idea in order to gain a moment of popularity with those who see no value in our work, is the ultimate humiliation.
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