File puptcrit/puptcrit.0805, message 95


From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mathieu_Ren=E9?= <creaturiste-AT-primus.ca>
To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 13:19:24 -0400
Subject: [Puptcrit] Avoiding racism in caricature


Hi all.

The current discussion about minstrel shows brings me to think again on a 
reccuring topic in my creative process.
For a long time in the past, I was blocked, something prevented me from 
doing puppets other than "white", for fear of shocking or being erroneously 
called a racist. I was affraid of caricature-like and grotesque features to 
be interpreted as a generalisation, as a mockery of a large group of people.

Today I realise what a waste of time that block was! so many faces, so many 
fun shapes could have been learned and applied! I know for a fact I am not, 
nor could ever be racist. I love human variety too much, am fascinated by 
it.
I'm of confirmed "mixed origins" myself, with ancestry from French, 
Scottish, American, and Native American. I often wished one of those could 
show more, so that I could be a bit more "exotic", but I'm already too 
"diluted".
LoL.

When I do a caricature, I am mocking a specific person, maybe a specific 
type of person, according to their inner characteristics. An evil greedy man 
can be of any group. It still hard to avoid cliches, because of the large 
amount of them in pop culture. Not too long ago, I realised that no matter 
what I do to represent these inner traits, I'll resort to physical 
attributes, because that's just how humans perceive things: through symbols 
and associations.
And no matter what I do, I can't be making everybody happy. Some will find 
offense. Someone could actually find a puppet of mine that looks like them 
(without my intent)! There always seems to be a few "offended" that would 
censor you.

I've been lucky so far in regards to censorship. Maybe it's because my 
creatures have not been specific-enough to identify them to an ethnic group. 
Most of them are fantasy creatures of strange colors, far enough away from 
anygroup to not cause any stir.

I'll probably start making portraits in modeling clay soon, as a study of 
the human face. I might even put those skills to work, start offering a 
puppet portrait service, caricatured or not.  So I'm glad that self-imposed 
block of mine is almost entirely gone!


What do you think are the causes for people's anger towards interpretation 
of human features?
What else does that bring to mind?
As always, I'm very curious!



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