Quotes About Representation

I didn't want 'Ramy' to be a commercial, like 'Hey, Muslims are good!' We're underrepresented, so the instinct when we get an opportunity like this is to show people that we're good, that we have the same shared values. What's more important to me is showing that we have the same flaws.

I just want people to see Muslims as human. That's it.

There are a lot of Arabs that are not Muslims. They are Christians; they are Jews. Muslim Arabs, especially in my family, are just so ecstatic that I get to play Jesus. They're so proud.

What I hope to do in the States is to break up this stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs. I mean, we are basically the only sub-culture that is not represented in Hollywood. And it's funny because everybody is talking about the Muslim world and the Arab world, and we are not represented.

On 'Black Hawk Down,' I was employing 1,000 Muslims. 'Kingdom of Heaven,' same deal except bigger, probably 1,500 Muslims.

I don't know that Islam has ever been a subject of anything that I've written. I think Muslims have often been, but those are two very different things.

Nobody has the right - even a Muslim - to talk for all Muslims.

I don't want to protect my characters. I don't do it with Muslims, either. My job is not to make us look perfect. My job is to make us look messy.

Growing up, I didn't see that many Muslims on TV and we don't see many now. But essentially I am a mother and that's the job I know best.

In my case you can pretty well figure that you can put a beret and a mustache on just about anything you want and it looks like me.

When I started my first blog years ago, I just wanted to share my perspective. For a long time, models had been these mute pretty faces - and I wanted to have a voice.

My friend and I founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival to counter the negative images of Arabs in media. And we always made sure that the comedy came first. So we weren't a bunch of Arabs trying to be funny. We were a bunch of comedians who just happened to be of Arab heritage.

I feel like I'm the voice for my generation, especially for women.

My generation of black British people often feels part American because of what we learned from TV.

Being on 'The Voice,' I have a voice. I'm speaking for my generation, and that's huge.

I'm a black woman and I'm so happy to represent myself in that respect, but I don't want it to be something that defines me and my journey for love. I definitely don't mind talking about it and addressing it.

I always try to make each character my own.

When I became the chair of the British Film Institute, I didn't understand how much of my time would be taken up with trying to make a case for the British Film Institute: what it's for, why it exists, why it needs its money.

It was the desire to see black girls and our experiences in the books that I was given to read at school that forced me to speak my truth. I launched #1000BlackGirlBooks, a book drive to collect the stories of women of color.

I do films for the common man and identify myself one among them.

I'm just interested in all of the different ways that a woman can be. We don't have enough, when it comes to American film, that shows all of the different complexities and ways that a woman is interesting and mysterious and dynamic and really complicated.

Art? That's a man's name.

There are no black women geniuses that are being named in canons. I could name a bunch, but it's not part of common knowledge. It's not how the world is taught to think about black women.

There are so many - namely black and brown bodies - who have experienced a different America than what the mainstream American flag symbolizes.