Quotes About Representation

I go to make art as who I am as a person. The fact that I am a woman comes into play maybe in the kinds of things I'm interested in or in the way I structure a canvas.

I have had issues in the past with the characters and the limitations of the characters and the structure of the narratives given to me as a woman of color.

I don't know why that is, but English politics is just so overly white. It's very much about the class structure.

We haven't evolved a hero story that's female. We're always trying to fit women's stories into this male structure, which is this rising action, this powerful conflict, and this falling action. And I think a female hero story is not that. It's something else.

If the screen does not make room for me in the structure of their screenplay, I'll step out. I'll step back. I'd step back. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it.

If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it - just to prove that he's gay?

The Congress plays a central role in our constitutional structure.

When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

Usually when you see females in movies, they feel like they have these metallic structures around them, they are caged in by male energy.

Because there are almost no men in 'Monstress,' we're focused completely on women. It's removed from traditional structures.

In the past I'd always felt like 'the girl' in the show or the movie. On 'Friday Night Lights' there were a bunch of girls, and I was the woman. Initially there was a little struggle with my identity around that. But now there's a sense of ease.

When people see Barack Obama, they don't necessarily see an African-American president. They see someone who is a child of immigrants. They see someone whose family has worked hard and struggled. And they see many similarities between themselves and Barack Obama.

We all want to be identified as someone cool, and I have struggled with repping where I'm from and my heritage before. It's part of growing pains. But when people see me being proud of what I am - and they are what I am too - it makes them proud. That's why I try to represent my Asian and my black side.

In much the same way Ip Man embodied the struggles of the Chinese people, I wanted Gong Er to represent the changing role of women.

My whole drive to be an actor was finding roles that I really believed represent modern women, the struggles that we deal with. Women who are strong and capable and in control of their own lives.

One of the problems maths struggles with is that it's invisible. We haven't got explosions on our side.

I think despite what we've seen on TV, people like seeing women and knowing about women's stories and their struggles and their truth. I think we've seen it in a lot of these shows - when there's a cast of all women, it does very well.

Images can make realities out of people and struggles - the reality we give them. Images really matter.

Deaf people are struggling to find their favorite show or something that represents them. It's hard. There are some examples of shows that have a deaf storyline in one episode, like Cold Case, or another show where they are focusing on the cochlear implant or the medical aspect.

It's actually reassuring to see people struggling to do our accent instead of us constantly trying to emulate British or American accents, which we are always asked to do.

Well, I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans and independents, for the struggling, the striving, the successful, for all those who vote for me and for those who don't. For all Americans together.

I don't want to play everyone's best friend. I don't want to play the role of a girl struggling in the ghetto. It's not that that story isn't important, but I saw patterns, and was like, 'I don't relate to these people.'

There aren't as many roles, and I think there's a lack of openness in casting an Asian character in a leading role or unless they're a stereotype. It's been hard. I've been able to play some non-stereotypical roles, which is great, but I have a lot of Asian actor friends who are struggling.

I do all these panels where people are always talking about the lack of female directors, and I have a lot of opinions on that.