Quotes About Identity

I think that just because the show is titled 'Awkward Black Girl' and it is a predominantly black cast doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to relate to these people. We're all human beings. We all essentially go through the same things when it comes down to it, so I don't I think that should limit who watches it.

When I was growing up, there were so many things I thought were stylish. Jabo jeans, V Bombers, Clarks, Vikings, Nugget watches, Lee pants with the patches, leather hats - which I still wear now. All hip-hop stuff, all South Bronx stuff.

When you're true to yourself - not the audience that reads about me in the newspaper or sees a clip someplace, but the audience that actually comes and watches, just like Oprah - they get to know you and they sense something genuine.

An audience who watches my shows knows who I am, knows that right when they think I'm going to make a joke, I'm going to blow something up, or during the worst peril, I'm going to have someone give someone a kiss - it's just going to happen.

'Seanan McGuire' is my real name; if I'm being silly and third-person about it, she's a frequently cranky, foul-mouthed Disney Princess on vacation in the real world, where she studies diseases, cuddles reptiles, watches lots of horror movies, and goes to as many corn fields as possible.

New York is kind of like L.A. If I walk around, not everyone is going to notice me because not everyone watches football, especially in New York. But I feel like everyone in Jersey is a Jets fan, and I always get recognized here.

I just try to be the same kid from New York and Greenwich, Connecticut, who is just lame and watches TV and Netflix.

I am born and brought up in Mumbai. I have grown up watching Hindi films. So I belong here, I feel.

As a newcomer to America who learned to 'speak American' by watching movies, I firmly believe that to change the politics of immigration and citizenship, we must change culture - the way we portray undocumented people like me and our role in society.

I remember watching Barbra Streisand and seeing Jennifer Grey in 'Dirty Dancing' - these were people who acted like me and looked like me. Now it's great that everyone on 'Glee' is so unique and people can relate to us and look up to us.

I had a really hard time in Orange County. I was a nerd. I was watching foreign cinema when I was 13 and talking about how 'Hope and Glory' should be a foreign film.

I remember the first time seeing myself on TV, when my family was watching the documentary 'Eyes on the Prize' for the first time. There were pictures of people going up the school stairs, and Mom said, 'Oh, that's you!' I said, 'I can't believe this. This is important.'

I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable.

I have a very specific memory of watching 'Singing in the Rain,' and looking at myself in the mirror after watching it and perceiving myself as one of those people that I was just watching on T.V. It was just kind of a knowing that this would be the world that I would enter into. And that's what I did.

If people don't know who you are, they're not going to listen to your message. And not everybody pays attention to politicians by watching Fox News and CNN.

Seeing, say, 'My Left Foot,' and 'The Last of the Mohicans.' How is that the same person? Or people like Johnny Depp, who can play Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands. I am so interested in the transformation, in not knowing anything about them and watching somebody create a character. I'm not really interested in personalities.

I think people are slowly realizing that don't have to be looking in a mirror to enjoy something. And they're realizing that watching a show with drag queens in it doesn't make you gay any more then listening to rap makes you black.

I vividly remember watching women in films when I was nine or 10, picturing them being what I'd be like as an adult. I had these real female crushes on certain actresses. And I'd watch them, thinking, 'One day, I'll be that. One day I'll be a woman.'

I think what people like about my channel is that I am not perfect. I always point to my pimple, my bad hair day... people relate to that. They are watching somebody who is exactly like them and talking about things that they experience as well.

Honestly, I was watching Marvel films and was always crestfallen: Where are the super-Asians? People are looking to be represented by their heroes.

If I see a movie on TV that I'm in, I usually will watch it for that reason: It's like I'm watching another person.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

When I was growing up watching Marilyn Monroe, I learned that you can be very beautiful, very glamorous and very vulnerable and not give up your soul just because you were a movie star.

I was watching the Nina Simone documentary alone in my room, and I said out loud to myself, 'Why do we not know that this woman is beauty? She is beauty! Why did no one tell me this growing up? Why was her name not next to 'beauty' in the dictionary?'