If you’re really into Art, best thing is to get enlightened - educated, because reality of true Artist is walking on the edge & the only constant is fight.
https://copyright.gov – the official US web-site – contains a lot of material about “fair use” doctrines in American law, although they are very careful to point out, “we’re not a lawyer.”
How can you be crtical of a social icon without including the icon in your work in some ways?
Put it this way, lets say you are an artist taking on Disney, your point is to make people aware of the destruction done by Disney, so you need to somehow creatively include the original work then put your creative addition/manipulation on top of it.
That is different than making another mickey mouse movie claiming that you are the creator of it which is covered by their copyright.
The quintessential example of course being Andy Warhol’s depiction of Campbell’s Soup cans – which was entirely legal, and which for a while did very nice things to boost sales of the product!
If you depicted “Mickey Mouse raping and pillaging and doing nasty things to young girls in a theme park,” Disney’s lawyers could – and, probably would – immediately “estop” you, rightly claiming that you are doing harm to their property. Or, that you were simply being an insufferable jerk.