Critical is a database meant to help underrepresented critics (women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people) find a space in mainstream publications and amplify their voices.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Time’s Up Critical Database Aims to Amplify Underrepresented Critics
Critical is a database meant to help underrepresented critics (women, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people) find a space in mainstream publications and amplify their voices.
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3 comments:
Often times, minorities and people from historically oppressed communities feel as through out voices are not heard and nobody will listen to us, that there is no place for our voices. The organization Time’s Up has shown they are dedicated and fiercely acknowledge this issue and provide a platform for voices that other publishers and new outlets will not amplify. Conversations about issues such as oppression and the treatment of minority groups should, in my opinion, be within mainstream media and news. By suppressing the allowance of articles/reports/commentary/etc on topics such as these is only contributing to the unfair lack of accurate representation of these people and stories within mainstream circulating stories. There will always be misguided or inaccurate reports on these issues, such as with the me too movement, where conservative new outlets and people turned to situation into making the women perpetrators and placing the blame on them.
I love this idea! I have frequently pointed out the discrepancy between intended audiences and the critics who comment on the shows. This was a large problem with Be More Chill in particular. The reviews can only accurately reflect the success of a show if the intended audience is given the opportunity to speak on it. I also believe that reviews shouldn’t be limited to the intended audience. A diverse group of people should review any show, and this database allows for that. Hopefully from this more women and poc will have their reviews published on a large scale and uplift a more diverse set of media. I think this kind of database may also be able to help move award shows away from only nominating white performers. I just hope that this database gets the reviews of women and poc into prominent publications, rather than giving those publications more reason to not publish them and regulate them to one place.
I think this database is a really great tool which functions to point out inequity in the system while also providing a resource that enables editors and publishers to diversify their choices. I really think that creating things like this, that gives people in positions of power easier access to a wider range of diverse individuals who are capable of doing the jobs available, and really negates any excuses that may be used to not make more voices heard. It always great to see developments that function on multiple levels like this. The research and database points out the prevalent issues while providing channels to initiate change and improvement to the problems. Obviously these problems are so ingrained and intricate that it’ll take a lot more than just simple tools to really fix the core of these problems but I do believe that starting by getting the right people in positions of influence is a great way to start.
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