Quotes About Representation

The world in which we live is diverse, and I think television and film should reflect that.

I'm extremely proud I'm an Asian female and I'm on television, because there aren't many of us.

Like anyone else in television, I like to explore my life experience. And I don't think African-American artists see doing shows or art about African-Americans as something 'less than.' I think maybe the industry sometimes does. We don't get as much attention, we don't get critical acclaim and so on.

Some people in America don't ever interact with black people outside of television, so we should give them real, believable characters.

Television is a real woman's medium... but what's disturbing is, still even in television, women have so little to do with what's going on behind the scenes.

Did you ever notice that nobody you see on television looks like anyone you know?

Television is the medium that's allowing women's stories to flourish.

I think the least stereotypical gay character on television is probably Matt LeBlanc on 'Episodes.' He just plays it so straight-faced. They never talk about the fact that he's such a huge gay person.

Having racially diverse casts on television is a more accurate depiction of the demographic of the world we live in.

While television can help normalize the lives of marginalized people, it also can exploit their hardships and reinforce stereotypes, reducing their lives to mere entertainment.

You know, there are not only - all of the networks, and I mean every television news operation and print and radio and magazines, newspapers, all of them, are remiss in the diversity area. I mean, none of these organizations have reached a level of parity.

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.

Playing a positive role on a network television show, it was great. I took it as a responsibility. Poncherello was supposed to be Poncherelli, and then when I got this part I said, 'You know what, this guy isn't going to be Italian-American, he's gonna be Hispanic American.' And they went with it.

As slavery died for the greater good of America, and the movement for equality sputtered to life, the white woman was on the cover of every American magazine. She was the dazzling jewel on every movie screen, the glory of every commercial and television show.

The significance of playing a South Asian character that's a lead role in a network primetime television show is certainly not lost on me.

I think 'Pose' is really a groundbreaking television show because we're telling stories about family and love through people that society has always believed were incapable of having that or being a part of that.

We need Hollywood to make movies and television shows about sexy female engineers.

Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.

American television, for all its faults, still has a black presence in shows and even in commercials. You'll see black people in automobile ads, black women starring on their own television shows. We don't see that on British television.

The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies.

In movies and television shows, there has never been a really good Chinese lead. So often the Chinese look like they are very scared and shy.

Not so long ago, my feminist education taught me to ask the question, 'Is the gaze male?' The answer, apparently, is yes, which is why so many movies and television shows are about men and not women.

I feel like it's extremely rare to find a female who's bisexual and not either lesbian or straight on television shows.

If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.