Quotes About Representation

Identifying with a character is one of the best parts of seeing a movie, but as women, we've had to train ourselves to experience the male journey.

I'm just really excited to expose people to different identities, different conversations but also to kind of reframe how they think about black women just by being myself.

I'm not a fan of identity politics.

One of the reasons why I created the podcast called the 'The Call-In' that we do through Array - because as a black artist, every time I sit down with mainstream media, I'm asked about issues of race, identity and culture. No one asked what they ask my white male counterparts, which is: 'Where do you like to put the camera?'

Film is carrying a lot of ideology. It's carrying an image. It's forging an image not only of the rest of the world, but also of yourself, you know.

Even if you look at 'American Idol,' or 'X-Factor,' or 'The Voice' or anything, it was always difficult to see an Asian or an Asian-American make it to a certain point.

I grew up thinking Margaret Cho and Lucy Liu were my idols because that's it.

When we ignore the will of the people, people lose.

It would be hard to ignore the absence of democracy in any Arab nation.

When you're a leader, you cannot ignore parts of your constituency, even if you know they're not going to vote for you.

It's very hard for politicians to ignore even just a handful of letters about the same issue.

I know what it's like to be ignored; when I got to L.A., I longed for somebody who looked like me to show me the ropes.

I think there is a lot of activism and energy from people all over America, and some of them are being represented by members that appear to be ignoring their constituents.

I wasn't put on the cover of 'Sports Illustrated' as a plus-size model; I was put on the cover of 'Sports Illustrated' as a model, as a rookie, as Ashley Graham.

When you create a movie, you create something in your image.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

It's hard for me to assess what I brought because each time you pick up a camera and point it at a person, you're trying to define that person so to talk generally is difficult because I have to think of a given image in order to conjure up what we're talking about.

I am a black woman who has been given this character called Hermione to play on the stage. But actually, we've all grown up with the books, with Emma Watson playing her in the films. Imagery is so strong.

I know how important imagery is.

Here I come with these images of black and white people, and a lot of people got angry at me.

I grew up under the politics of my size and my skin. I grew up under the politics of the sound of my voice and a lack of agency, or a feeling of a lack of agency, and not always being able to find myself in images that were in the media.

For more than two decades, GLAAD has combatted anti-LGBT images in the media and changed the national conversation about LGBT people.

I grew up in a world where stories and images were made and told by men. So I know this world very well. I am moved by this world.

It's important that I'm a role model and that the companies that I associate myself with feel the same way about their own images. Those are companies I'd like to be associated with.