Rick Famuyiwa Quotes

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

Why is the world that I see around me mixed, and why is the world I see in movies filled with all white people? Why does it have to be like that?

When I was growing up, all these superheroes were white. On some level, you put that out of your mind... but as you get older, you realize it's a very one-sided affair. So I'm very glad to see that these movies are becoming more diversified.

The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies.

When I go to the movies, I'm expected to identify with all of the characters, and most of them are white. But when you put a black character in there, somehow the white audience isn't expected to identify with them. That's a problem.

I want to see designers capitalize on a beauty that is not only white. I need them to stop acting like beautiful black and brown women do not exist.

Hollywood had a history of whitewashing and not representing.

Of course I worry about whitewashing, and I feel very strongly that whitewashing was, is, and continues to be a problem in entertainment.

As white authors, bloggers, and readers, we must stop promoting diversity as a business opportunity or a chance to buy ally points with our disposable income.

People are tired of mainstream media's limited and confined portrayal of people of color.

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

African-Americans are always forced to learn the other culture, but the other culture is not forced to learn ours. I went to acting school at Juilliard, and we learned Shakespeare and Shaw, but we never did the work of a single African-American playwright, not August Wilson or Ntozake Shange or Imir Baraka.

Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.

I believe I can do it, but one of the reasons I don't really get into the debate is people keep talking about a black James Bond: how a black man should play him.

In England, you feel like a member of the revolutionary guard the minute you even mention race. But I do think that the OscarsSoWhite phenomenon will have to reflect back on England. What people are essentially saying is that they want to see more diverse stories. It's not about putting three black people in the back of the shot.

Poitier opened the doors to so many artists, not just black artists. There is a line that goes from black to Latin to Asian with regards to roles.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

People of African descent, most of us grew up accepting and loving Spider-Man. I still love Spider-Man. I still love the Incredible Hulk. I still have those characters that were white role models, superheroes, heroes - whatever you want to call it. You basically had no choice but to accept those.

The truth of the matter is, I am a black woman, and I am an actor. I don't try to get caught up in being a black actor; I'm just an actor who is a black woman. It's not about forgetting that you're black, but you don't need to be hammered over the head, either; it just is what it is.

Even white people are tired of watching white people's shows.

There are so many shows that are 'white,' and we wanted to talk about how two really delusional, cliche white girls handle racial issues.

I think #OscarsSoWhite is about there not truly being enough people of color represented.

I feel like being vocal on social media, especially working in an industry that is very Eurocentric.

I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.

I also have a film coming up called Breaking Up, and my part in that was not written for a Latina, and my character is not particularly pretty or sexy or exotic.