Quotes About Representation

By the nature of cinema and how it literalizes what we envision, movies can have difficulty replicating that connection we make with a classic book.

You see the Paper Bois - easy. Personas are easy to touch and see and digest. But you don't get the chance to really see who the Alfreds are. I want to make sure I did that with him.

Why can't we digest a woman taking the lead in a love scene?

When you cast cross-racially, another dimension is added.

I think the job of the first single is kind of like being a diplomat for a country.

My characters are based on people I know, but not in a direct way.

There is a certain highlighting of issues, be it emotional, be it social, or simply an entertainment one: they can be written or directed by a woman differently, with a different voice. I feel that their voice needs to be given more stage and more space.

I would love to be directed by more women.

I wish I could be the black woman Soderbergh, and put the camera on my shoulder and shoot beautifully while I directed.

I want to see some scripts written by women and projects being directed by women.

I wish I had seen some women directing before - that would have given me the idea of who I was.

I'm a woman director and my movies are shown all around the world.

I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background.

We definitely have to support other female directors because there's not enough of us.

The question I always ask is: 'Where are all the women directors in America?' You know, where's the female Martin Scorsese, the female David Lynch?

If you see films which have been successful over the last 10 years, the women in them have been in their 20s. 'The Dirty Picture' and 'English Vinglish' are two I can think of. But there are very few good roles for women in their 30s.

Basically, the system works to my disadvantage for no other reason than that I am a person of color, and I am telling stories about people of color.

I was really disappointed with the lack of respect from the UFC towards Brazilian athletes.

I was actually a bit disappointed about the amount of sex in the show. I think Backus should get out a bit more, get a relationship, perhaps make her a lesbian.

The baseline character in a lot of Western literature is a man. So we, as women, do a lot of suspending of our disbelief to experience a novel or a play or a movie through that male character.

Everybody's life matters. But that's why we have to say black lives matter, because the highest disproportionality, police brutality, disenfranchisement, education disproportionality in school discipline, curriculum, misrepresentation, all of this.

A lot of my inspiration is what straight-size women wear - why is there a disconnect from what they wear and what we can wear?

The lack of role models at the top means women can't look up and see an image of themselves as easily as men can. And there is still discrimination.