It’s Not the Critic Who Counts: Queer People Step Into the Arena
Writing about cinema as a form of memoir and activism
As an actor-filmmaker, the last thing I’d ever want to be is a critic.
Whenever a play or a film I’m in receives a bad review, it takes a lot of deep breathing and long walks in the park to shrug off the pain and humiliation, and move forward with enough confidence to try again.
Each time it happens, I wonder if the person who threw out a vicious quip has any idea how much an artist’s vulnerability costs them emotionally.
I remember after one particularly scathing review, I was really spiraling toward an existential crisis, and the thing that saved me was listening over and over to Brené Brown’s commentary on Teddy Roosevelt’s assertion —
It’s not the critic who counts — the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena — who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly
