Is your artwork politically correct? Should it be?
The consumers drive the market, & publishers want to Make money.
Supply and demand. What do people buy? Picture books about white folk.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author in his or her, okay it’s Wayne so his, private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of FolioAcademy, or any others involved with FolioAcademy. In fact, many views portrayed here are not even those of the author, he is only exploring ideas and suggesting what his opinion might be, as even he is too spineless to make up his mind. He says he is always willing to update his opinion. So is he open minded or wishy washy? I think he is a short, chubby, gray haired, wrinkly old, slow learning, pale faced, Gringo, Stupid, right brained, attention seeking, art teaching, blog posting, picture drawing, lazy, art loving, math hating, spell check using, time wasting, attention seeking, Yankee and a little man who used to wet the bed.
Yet another opinion from another middle class, white maLE. Go figure.
Let me start with my own disclaimer, I do not in any way mean to offend and I refuse to be offended if you comment. This is a LONG post, read as much or as little as you want and please, Don’t let me offend you. That being said, POO-POO PEE-PEE! tee hee. No offence.
Strong words that offend can be used for shock value.
I used to think that (poopoo peepee) was the absolute most worstest thing a person could say, and i peaked over our fence as a child and just blurted out “POOPOO PEEPEE!” at some innocent people. I ducked back down, giggling and feeling exhilarated and at the same time, scared for my eternal soul.
What Politically Correct means to me.
My opinion in short, or in long as it may seam. In a nutshell, PC is a hot and popular topic and it can affect your bottom line. Since the beginning of time, the white man (figure of speech) pretty much controlled and dictated what was published and HE didn’t care who he offended as long as he was on top and was making money. Well, we the people started to notice, and people are easily offended. So we complain and things slowly change. Depending on who’s buying your product, and if you want ‘those kind of people as customers’, you should comply to their needs and wants. A true Artist may draw and paint what ever SHE (to be PC one needs to limit the HE word) wants and “If you, (the would be client,) don’t like it, tough! I am being true to myself.” Maybe that’s why artists starve. If you want to make money, create value. If people want PC in their art, or ads or magazines or books or training material, then ultimately, they won’t buy your racist, chauvinistic, leave out the minority, pick on the handicapped, social faux pas art work and they will buy from artists that are smart enough to provide PC work. If you are working for Ebony magazine, for example, feel free to leave out the crackers. (white folk) if you are working for a White supremacist magazine, (I hope there aren’t any) then you could probably leave out the ‘people of color’ or even dis other races and be as non PC as you want. The cool thing about free enterprise is that you can do what you want and if you provide value, you will be rewarded. I believe however that it is ‘uncool’ to be racist, sexist, communist, supremacist etc.
People will take offence when they shouldn’t.
So what does Politically Correct mean to me? It means walk softly, try not to offend or exclude anyone. Be ultra fair. Do not pick on anyone. Stay far away from racial slurs don’t use racial, old age, career, or gender stereotypes to help get your point across. Look at your work objectively and be nice. That’s just good practice. But even still, there are a lot of people, I feel, with huge chips on their shoulders, just looking for an excuse to be offended. I hope you are not one of those, and I try not to be.
As a white child in a white (trash) neighborhood, going to a white school, with white friends in a white family, I never gave it a thought that most of my toys and books were “white”. My favorite fisher price character however, was a little black kid and I had a black G.I. Joe, and a red headed one, and a bunch of white ones. Billy blast off was white, my Bozo doll was white, (clown white), my trucks were yellow, my army men where green and my Teddy Bear was brown. My dinosaurs were all colors, and my blocks and tinker toys ere multi colored too. My favorite doll, yes I played with dolls, (Sissy!) was Zipy, a chimp and Bozo was my next fave.
My mother and father were nearly illiterate and seldom read to me. But I enjoyed it when they did. Among my favorite books were, Where the White, I mean, Wild Things Are, (that would have been my fave no mater Max’s race, was he Asian?) ping, (Asian) and a bunch of white people books, Dr. Suess types. My sister’s favorite dolls were Mrs. Beasley (an old lady, white) and Nancy (a black girl). And some little dolls called Kiddles, some were of color. My mom was puzzled.
This was Inspired by Will Terry’s Response to the New York Times ‘Why No Peeps of Color in Children’s Books’ Article; by Walter Dean Myers
WHY DO YOU THINK THE CHILDREN’S BOOK WORLD IS so NEGLECTING TO DEPICT, PEOPLE OF COLOR?
When I was a kid, I didn’t like any people in the books at all. The fewer humans, white or other, the better. I liked animal characters in my books and in the cartoons I watched, and in the coloring books I colored in. Or monsters or dinosaurs. Animals are cuter than people and more fun.
I worked as an in-house artist for 12 years creating educational software, books and videos for Waterford Institute. We were mostly white folk there, trying to create artwork and educational stuff for the ‘inner city’ children, so we had a ‘PC department’, more white folk, and a lot of our stuff got shot down. We were only allowed to put so many white people in our work. One time an artist there, we’ll call him Pat, illustrated a book with a whole family of whities. He used up our cracker ‘quota’, so then nobody else could illustrate a white person again on that project.