When “Bold” Stops Being Legible: Part 6 of “The Alignment Series”
- Tanesha Ford
- Apr 14
- 4 min read
I am about to admit something to you all. I didn’t get The Menu with Ralph Fiennes. I enjoyed the comeuppance. The interesting turn of events, but I knew they were trying to convey something deeper to me as the audience, but I was not picking up what they were putting down, as it were.
However, as I have been going through and crystallizing the concepts in this Alignment series, something clicked for me with The Menu and the arts. And I thought… ahhh. I am getting something, even if it isn’t the “IT” they wanted me to get.
So this week, I ask you:
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been asked to promote a “bold artistic vision” that no one could actually explain in plain language.
Raise your hand if the experience was described as “transformative,” but no one defined who it was for.
Raise your hand if ticket sales lagged and the conclusion was “the audience just doesn’t get it”.
Raise your hand if accessibility was treated like a compromise instead of part of the creative strategy. 🚩
Raise your hand if you’ve watched something be meticulously crafted and completely miss the people it was meant to serve.
If your hand is up, you already know this tension.
When “Bold” Becomes Vague
We talk a lot about being bold in nonprofit arts spaces. Pushing boundaries or protecting the work. And yes, that matters. And. We also need to be understood.
Not simplified. Not watered down. Understood.
Because when a piece of work cannot be articulated in a way that connects to a real person outside the rehearsal room or curatorial statement, the issue is not always the audience. Sometimes the issue is alignment.
I’ve sat in rooms where the artistic intent felt like a private (or privileged) language. Useful words like immersive, disruptive, and interdisciplinary were bantered about without an invitation for audience understanding.
When that language is the only bridge to the audience, it creates distance instead of curiosity.
Art does not live in a bubble. It needs to be consumed.
Are you creating for the right consumer? Are you courting the right consumer for your creation?
When the Experience Stops Considering the Audience
In The Menu, the experience becomes so conceptual that it disconnects from the people it is meant to serve.
The craft is there. The vision is clear to the creator. But the audience is left trying to figure out where they fit.
Comment below if you have also seen that play out in real time.
Marketing teams are asked to translate work that is thoughtful and beautifully executed, but disconnected from the community it is presented to. Teams are left trying to describe something that was never grounded in the reality of the audience it was meant to reach. In some cases, the work is simply in the wrong market for the audience being pursued.
And when it does not land, we say the audience is not ready.
I want to challenge that.
Audiences are not resistant to complexity. But they do need a way in. They need context. They need to feel considered, not tested.
Courage Is Not Just What You Make. It’s Who You Bring With You
Courage in programming is not just about how far you can push conceptually. It is about how intentionally you bring your audience with you.
That is where sustainability lives.
The organizations that sustain bold work are not the ones that abandon accessibility. They are the ones who build it into the process from the beginning.
They ask different questions.
Who is this for, and how will they recognize themselves in it?
How are we inviting people into this experience, not just presenting it?
How does our language build trust instead of distance?
Clarity Is Not the Opposite of Depth
This is not about compromising the work. It is about expanding the frame around it.
It also requires letting go of the idea that being misunderstood is a sign of depth.
Clarity is not the enemy of artistry. It is one of its strongest tools.
There is a moment in The Menu where Anya Taylor-Joy sees a photo of the chef in his youth making a hamburger. That simple moment became meaningful to me because it is grounded in something human and recognizable. It helped Margot and me (the audience) begin to grasp some of the roots of this nightmarish dinner.
I think about that often when organizations feel stuck between wanting to be daring and needing to sustain.
You do not have to choose. But you do have to align.
Align your vision with your audience.
Align your language with your intent.
Align your courage with your capacity.
Because when those things are out of sync, no amount of marketing can fix it.
And when they are aligned, even challenging work can find its people.
So as you move into your next program or campaign, sit with this:
Who is this actually for, and how will they know?
Next week, in part 7, I will dig into season announcements — and the politics behind them.
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