Quotes About Representation

My grandfather was extremely dark and from Puerto Rico, but his brother had blond hair and blue eyes. There are so many different shades, and I think Hollywood has yet to realize that.

If there's a woman who is exhibiting her femininity or performing her femininity, it's always seen as meant to pull in the male gaze.

I think, in the longer view of things, there is a very powerful pull in the direction of participatory government.

It would be great if people could guess right off that I am Japanese-Finnish-American. But then I'd have to be wearing a kimono and pulling a reindeer.

I have lived with the people, and I, too, know their pulse; I am the people's CM.

Non-disabled actors should not still be playing disabled characters in 2020. We're better than that. It's frankly offensive and archaic and it makes me so angry I want to punch a wall.

A lot of times, in other films in the past, you see some drag roles that make you go, 'OK we're the punch line again.' You know, someone comes in and they're like, 'Oh is it a man?' that kind of thing.

Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture. I do that by showing the world as I really find it.

I speak for Kashmiri pundits because injustice has been done to them, and the political discourse doesn't give them enough importance.

You must see the persons who are in charge - persons you can punish or vote for.

I don't mind being called a puppet. But I'm the puppet of the people.

That's the thing with animated films - I often feel that puppets get the better parts compared to us normal actresses.

I write plays and movies, I live and work at the borderline between word and image just as any cartoonist or illustrator does. I'm not a pure writer. I use words as the score for kinetic imagistic representations.

I think the medium of television is so great for women, especially right now, because I feel like with 'Broad City' and Amy Schumer and 'Girls', the creators are the stars, so their voice is totally pure.

Every type of purely direct concrete description bears the mark of artistic portrayal.

The Arab world is mediatised in a way that gives too much space to these people - puritans, extremists, whatever you want to call them. There are a lot more people like me in the Middle East than you might think.

There's room for everyone, and everyone is wanted and needed. Whoopi showed me that. When I first saw 'The Color Purple,' it was so huge. That was the first time I had seen myself, my mother, my aunts, women that I had known my whole life on-screen. It gives us hope, and it gives us confidence.

I think a black man, purple man, Martian man can run the country... as long as he does right by the people.

No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship.

I do get a little disheartened when you hear about how many girls get discouraged to not pursue a career in the sciences, and I feel like seeing women that are portrayed in this way - and beyond that, just three dimensional, complicated women - those are always going to be the stories that I gravitate to most.

Photography is a pursuit that allows you to be very hands-on with what you show people of either yourself or the art you want to make, and acting is kind of the exact opposite. You do have a modicum of creative freedom as an actor, but you're still very much a cipher for other people's art.

The more I'm pushed in a position of leadership and I know I have to be the mouthpiece for so many other people who can't speak for themselves, the more confidence I'm gaining.

Films are very influential, and I especially feel a responsibility to tell stories that have been pushed aside. Being able to shed light on issues that need to be brought to the world.

You will always have politics being pushed towards multiracial politics because you have to field a team.