Getting Your Dream Job Sometimes Requires Changing Your Dreams

Don’t let the myth of the starving artist become a reality

I was watching a Disney movie with my kids last Friday evening. It was called Ulysses and Flora. It wasn’t very good, and I don’t remember the exact plot. What stood out to me was the glaring representation of a harmful myth: that of the starving, struggling artist.

The dad in the movie is a graphic novelist. His daughter thinks he’s brilliant; she loves his stories and relates to his characters, namely one of the main superheroes. But sadly, no publisher has accepted the dad’s work. He remains unpublished, unappreciated, and obscure. He is waiting for the approval of the gatekeepers. Meanwhile, he makes nothing from his art, and so he works at Wal-mart, oppressed by his obnoxious store manager.

What bothers me about this setup is that there is no in-between. The artist is either approved and accepted by the gatekeepers, and therefore a success, or a bottom-of-the-barrel nobody, a failure. His skills have one home, and that is in his narrowly conceived idea of his art, namely an industry approved, published graphic novel. Unless he achieves this specific kind of success, he must suffer in one of the worst imaginable situation for an American—a subservient, powerless job making minimum wage.