In August when I went to New York with my one-woman show I knew it was going to be a struggle. We would be lucky to get any reviews at all, so I had to be ready for negative reviews, and I had to be ready for them to get personal.
HOW DID YOU DEAL WITH IT, FAITH?
Well, let me tell you. I handled it the one foolproof way I know: by not reading them. Which was good, because I got five reviews in all – two were mostly positive, two were mostly negative, and one was vaguely snarky. I know this because I did have to read them eventually.
There’s a weird thrill that comes from reading a bad review about your work. Maybe it’s the thrill of someone finally punching you in the face after long-simmering tension. There’s catharsis in that: finally, someone told me the truth, that I suck. The danger is that you will take it too much to heart. “Sophomoric and angsty” = IT’S TRUE, I AM SOPHOMORIC AND ANGSTY, what is wrong with me, why am I so immature, why do I suck so much, I should just give this up and be a schoolteacher except I probably suck at that too, etc. etc. etc.
I think it is possible to reach a point where you take the punch but it doesn’t stop you. Where you say, ok, maybe my work is sophomoric and angsty. WHAT ELSE YOU GOT? Or better yet, you take that criticism and use it as promotion. COME SEE FAITH HELMA “DOG PADDLING IN CABARET.” (That is advanced level badassery though, and a topic we will tackle another day: how to reclaim negative criticism and use it for self-promotion).
And you know what, praise is actually trickier to deal with, because if someone says “she is doing the best work of her life,” what do you do? Sit back and say, yes, I am doing the best work of my life? In that case the only thing I’ve figured out (though no one has said I’m doing the best work of my life – so I haven’t had to work too hard) is to allow the praise its brief moment to happy dance with my ego, then tell it to pack up its things and play with someone else.
Maybe that’s something you could do with the negative too: let it flourish and drip inky doubt into your psyche, then push it out the door and say, it’s time to go home now.
So, that’s my method for dealing with reviews. But what about the rest of life, when your criticism doesn’t come in the form of published articles that you can easily avoid or hold at arm's length? AHHHH. Yes. That is much more difficult.
WHAT DO I DO ABOUT BAD REVIEWS OF MY LIFE?
I don't have a clue. But Sarah over at Make Great Stuff talks about taking in feedback as a visual artist, which is fascinating to me – I spend a lot of time thinking about how hard it is to be a performer and how easy it must be to be a visual artist – but of course we’re all putting our hearts and beliefs and risks out there for everyone to see, and that is haaaaaard hard hard.
And over at Fluent Self, Havi talks about the concept of sovereignty a lot – not letting someone else’s shoe-throwing (aka, criticism that comes out of nowhere) throw you off balance, learning how to step back and say, that is your deal, this is my deal, I am going to listen to what you’re saying but not fall into a weeping puddle of self doubt and recrimination.
Well – I have to say I’m not quite that sovereign yet – I am still liable to get tearful if someone calls me out directly. Or if I manage to not show it on the outside, I’m feeling it in the form of a raging hole inside. But it is a helpful image and word to keep in mind. Sovereignty.
And I always love Penelope Trunk. She lays the events of her life out with spare, unrelenting honesty, and if someone tries to tear her down, she ups the ante. An example: family members of the man she was dating were doing searches to find her most salacious posts, and forwarding them to other family members. She mentions this, and then says,
“Wait. You are wondering, right? What they’re finding? Here. Here’s a list of some links.”
And links to the three most salacious things she’s written. Which means she is in control of her story, and not letting other people get hold of it. She’s not hiding – she’s putting it out there even more. I admire this. I think it’s smart, and fucking hard to do.
IT ALL COMES BACK TO BARACK
This may be a weird comparison, but I am reminded of Barack Obama. When a scandal comes out, instead of denying and denying and running and hiding, he uses that opportunity to lay his cards down and speak directly and honestly. When the Reverend Wright scandal first broke, he responded with a beautiful, difficult speech about race. This week, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (a perfect example of positive praise sometimes being worse than negative praise*), he directly addressed the awkwardness of accepting a peace prize just as he’s going deeper into war:
But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.
Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
(Read the entire speech here).
Most politicians these days (maybe always) avoid being honest about difficult topics. But you know what they risk by not talking about the difficult things? They risk the story getting away from them, and I think Barack Obama is incredibly smart to take hold of the story at the beginning, to put his cards on the table and articulate the issue in his own words. To do otherwise is to let secrets take hold, to let the gossip whispered behind backs gain power. You need to be in control of your story, warts and all.
So, that is what I am mulling over today and trying to learn. How to talk about my life and my art and all the mistakes and confusions and slings and arrows, without shame or fear.
* wait, I just realized I may have coined a term: negative praise. Is that when someone praises you for what you're not, like, "oh she'll be fine, she's no dummy" or "he's never been late a day in his life"?
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