Wilson Cruz Quotes

It's important for Asian American kids to see themselves in stories and to feel seen. They need to know that their stories are universal, too, that they, too, can fall in love in a teen movie. They don't have to be the sidekick; they can be the hero.

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.

There's drama in everything. That's why I love movies. Like 'Welcome to the Dollhouse.' I'm a 350-pound black man, and I could understand what it was like to be a little white girl.

I grew up watching cinema in my country that wasn't telling stories about us, and we had to find a way to connect, and our references, our role models had nothing to do with us. And I'm so glad that it's changing.

It's very important to me that people get to see themselves in stories. When someone tells me they've never seen themselves, I have a new goal.

Representation is necessary, and we all want to turn on the TV and see characters who look like us and represent us in some way.

While the books I read as a child lacked diversity in the strict sense, they didn't lack values. Reading, I didn't see me externally, but I felt me - my humanity.

Seeing someone that you can relate to in the media is everything as a child, and a lot of people are not granted that luxury.

I loved reading when I grew up but did feel totally invisible because I couldn't see myself and my life reflected in the books I was reading.

We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.

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 didn't see a lot of women who looked like me on TV when I was growing up.

I make films about black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

When I grew up, I never saw anyone looking like me on TV, you know? I'm so glad to see a lot more of us on television, whether it's Mindy Kaling or it's Irrfan Khan or Freida Pinto. You know, I hope, like, little girls across the world can just look at me and say, 'Ah, I want to be that!' Indian or not, it shouldn't matter.

Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.

I'm such a firm believer that everyone should see themselves in a character, and everyone should feel represented.

It's hard as a young person of a different ethnicity or background to look at the TV and not see anyone who looks like you. Representation is very important.

I wrote 'Redefining Realness' because not enough of our stories are being told, and I believe we need stories that reflect us so we don't feel so isolated in our apparent 'difference.'

I'm proud to carry that torch and be like, 'I'm gay! I'm black! Hang your dreams on me. Hang your hopes on me. I'll carry them to the best of my ability.'

I think when you look at the diversity of the readership, all the different people who love comics, I want comics to reflect the real world, and I think Marvel does a good job of trying to do that, but I don't think there's ever an end point when it comes to creating diversity and creating stories that people can relate to.

'Essence' is political. I grew up on the magazine, looking at the covers. Seeing ourselves on the cover is political.

I loved her music and the fact that she was a classically trained pianist and that her voice was so unique, but what made Nina Simone my hero is that I had never seen anyone in the public eye who looked anything like me at all, ever.

I feel like our fans identify with us because they're like, 'I'm her,' or 'I don't look like any of them, but I'm different like them.'

There's something to be said about seeing your face represented. There's just something really important about that. It just draws you in more.

I think it's important to have diversity in comics for a thousand reasons. It's not just some airy conceptual thing: it's important to reflect the humanity of the readership.