Forest Whitaker Quotes

In many ways the film business is behind what's going on culturally. We are a world that is becoming more diverse and there's no going back.

Popular literature and culture used to reflect people's aspirations, pain, and passion. All those particular things are no longer available to us.

Asian literature is evolving with the people. It's always a reflection on what's happening to the culture at large.

Across all the globe there harshly blow the winds of change

I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to see themselves on screen, and it is a white male world. Still, it does feel like America is waking up. Let's hope it's the start of an avalanche.

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.

Fashion has come a long way to embrace different body shapes, ethnicities, even looks. I find it an exciting time culturally for these reasons. Women are really coming into their own.

Black filmmakers - I'm grateful for them.

Audiences change because life changes. Countries change geographically, climatically, socially and morally. Many things happen, and cinema, in a sense, reflects what's happening in the world.

I'd never been around or seen a black showrunner, and in some ways you wish that it wasn't a big deal.

Indian cinema is changing not because of outside pressure but because of inside pressure. Society is changing. Obviously, ideas change because of globalization, because of the huge middle class that is mostly first generation.

I fully believe that representation and inclusion matters... and that's why on all of our films, we've featured diverse casts, and that actually is true for 'Kubo' as well.

'Hamilton' just asks us all to go a little bit deeper: whether you're a hip-hop fan seeing musical theater for the first time, or if you were thinking you were gonna see some reprise of 1776, and now it's this? And you're thinking, 'Wait a minute, these people aren't white!' It asks you just take a step and go a little deeper.

Everything is so unstable in these times of progress at any cost, and social customs and methods of life alter so rapidly, that a few years now suffice to change completely the face of usages which, at their inception, bade fair to outlive the age - so enthusiastically were they welcomed by the public.

At the end of the day, films mirror our society. It will take time for everybody to open up to this and accept it. They are not instantly going to sit up and change the way they think about it.

There's this moment happening in our culture where the power of the audience and the influence that people of color have is undeniable at this point.

The concept of 'diversity' was this big moral 'should.' And now with the success of shows like 'Fresh Off the Boat,' 'Empire,' 'Blackish,' and 'Jane the Virgin,' it's become this big business 'must,' which is so great.

My wish would be for positive representation and more diversity coming from Hollywood.

I don't want to exclusively direct white films, or black films. I want to have a choice.

There were people who voted for Obama simply because he was the first African-American. We had a lot of people that would not have voted for Obama but who did because they really hoped that the nation, making the statement electing an African-American president, would prove once and for all that this is not a racist nation. I believe that there were all kinds of people that voted for Obama with that hope. That was the reason. Everything else was irrelevant to them.

Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China's society is opening.

I think we're at a really rich and fertile time in the zeitgeist about paying attention to diversity of all kinds - racial diversity, gender diversity, making room for a continuum that is more inclusive.

This world of ours is a new world, in which the unit of knowledge, the nature of human communities, the order of society, the order of ideas, the very notions of society and culture have changed, and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is new, not because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality.

I think people look at revolution too much in terms of power. I think revolution has to be seen more anthropologically, in terms of transitions from one mode of life to another.

It's important to begin to even consider whether countries can become something that looks very different because people tend to take their countries for granted.