Dee Rees Quotes

Sometimes you have to see the thing to know that it exists. Maybe there's a queer person in a town, but they don't feel comfortable or safe coming out, frankly, and the only representation they feel that they have or connection they have is on television or in a movie, and that's really powerful.

Film has changed the way we look at the past.

Shouldn't you be able to tell your stories from your point of view? We're dealing with that with 'Looking' where some queers are like, 'These guys are so boring! They don't represent me!' But no show can represent everything, so is it OK for us, in 'Looking,' to write about these three men and their world?

Hollywood is right. A good and strong movie can have a more powerful social impact than any and all political speeches or newspaper editorials and columns.

'The Cosby Show' changed America's opinion on so many different topics and opened so many people's eyes, and so you really learned immediately the power of what you were doing, that there was a power in portraying a role, and you were made aware of the effect that it could have on people, so it does raise the bar.

I decided to host a couple of the 'In The Life' programs. And I did that really as a result of meeting a lot of young gay people in the Midwest who really had nothing to relate to. At least I felt this program is presenting them with some options.

Television is what it's always been. The best of times and the worst of times at the same time.

I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.

Television and I grew up together.

The power of television - it's so present in our lives, we don't even know how powerful it is.

I can remember when there were storylines with gay characters on shows like 'Family' and 'Dynasty' and thinking, I have something in common with that person. This was way before the Internet and all the visibility that has brought with it.

We know television should educate and inform, and I believe it should entertain.

It's scary how effective movies can be. It's a very powerful medium that I think is sometimes abused.

Television really has been responsible for everything that I've done successfully.

I was always told that films were evil and such, but I started to realise what a load of crap it was that something this good should be forbidden. I had been allowed to read as much as I wanted when I was younger, so I recognised great art when I saw it; I just didn't realise it would be at the cinema as well.

That's the power of television. You come into people's homes every week, and that creates a familiarity and a false sense of intimacy.

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

I wonder: Would there be a black president if people hadn't already begun imagining, through film and television, that a black man is president? It's self-actualization.

If you look at pop culture as the main picture you see of black men, all these kind of threatening pictures and - I think those of us who are artists and who are in media have to think carefully about what those pictures are.

TV has always been a very strong and powerful medium for women.

I definitely feel that films and TV shows can bring about social change.

Growing up, I'd watch 'The Cosby Show' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air;' I'd look at the little brown girls and be inspired by them.

As an actor, it was important to me to play gay characters because, growing up, it was something I never really saw done on television and in film, and I was questioning why there weren't more people like me.

There is no good or bad cinema, there are films that connect either less or more with audience.

I get reached out to by a lot of people who just thank me for representing them and their friends. Just showing people like them on TV. It's just really awesome to hear from them.