Sami Zayn Quotes

There's enough of a willingness in the West to do sympathetic movies about Arab roles.

When was the last time an Arab MK who appeared on television wasn't there in the role of the accused who is attacked by a skeptical broadcaster?

The reason it has relevance is because I, as a popular Arab personality - the Arab people like me and respect me - thought it was time for me to make an ever so tiny statement about what I thought about this whole thing.

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.

I'd be so fascinated to talk to a psychologist or sociologist about the deep psychological impact of seeing oneself represented. I don't think we've really touched the surface of what it does to the psyche of a people if the only image of you out there is negative. Or if it's never out there.

The people who relate to Playboy, both readers and people who produce it, are not the way the critics think they are.

I'm not very happy to be classified as another Japanese designer. There is no one characteristic that all Japanese designers have.

Just because we finally have a Latino family on TV doesn't mean we're up there to lecture people about what it means to be Latino.

While I am a huge proponent of us as Africans telling our own stories and countering the negative stereotypes out there since no one else will, I am also cognizant of the power that the mainstream Western media still has on shaping perceptions of the continent.

Ever since I was a kid and growing up and watching things like the 'Naked Gun' movies, there was always this stereotype about how Arabs were perceived and portrayed. I've never watched those Arab villains in the movie and felt like that was me.

One time, I went to an audition, and I stated my name, and the lady was like, 'Oh, that name sounds really familiar. I've seen you on TMZ.' Her first perception of me was what she had heard.

Whether we're talking about race or gender or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is, it's where the learning is.

Being a model and an actress, I feel we a have a responsibility towards society.

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.

Just because of 'Rangeela' and 'Daud,' it can't be said that I am a sex symbol.

We all know we're conditioned from music and television, so for us, we take great privilege in being role models, and having an impressionable audience its important for us to make sure what we're doing is in line with them.

My biggest goal became to bring the weight of and the voice of the Arabs into the Israeli political sphere.

Films can't change the society; they can simply open the space for the discussion which can lead to social change and can start new forms of social activism.

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.

The images you see in media are vital to impacting not just what the world sees in terms of who can be a computer scientist, who can be techie, who can be a geek or who can be a creator; it also impacts the girls and what they internalize.

Every time I do something, I think, 'Am I portraying Asian people in the way I want to be portrayed?'

If I can be a positive Arab figure on such a large platform such as the WWE, and become some sort of an inspiration to an Arab kid in Lebanon, Egypt, or Jordan, then that's amazing.

When I lived in England my perception of what people thought of me was largely formed by the media.

As a programme-maker you've got a responsibility to examine your choices and how they play in the wider world.

I think about what I grew up seeing, what I didn't see growing up, and what it felt like when I did see someone who I thought that I could relate to, just living their life on screen.