Catherine Opie Quotes

Television is generally on the conservative side, so if you're seeing it represented on TV, that probably means it's really out there in the real world.

I don't think many people stare at people in wheelchairs because we see it regularly. I suppose if you see more in the media it will take away the curiosity.

Acting is how I'll be able to change how Latinos are viewed in media and change how little girls see and talk about themselves.

We're always bombarded with images from magazines of what looks cool and sexy.

Whoopi Goldberg looked like me, she had hair like mine, she was dark like me. I'd been starved for images of myself. I'd grown up watching a lot of American TV. There was very little Kenyan material, because we had an autocratic ruler who stifled our creative expression.

There is no dignity in television.

We all know that television is better for women as they get into their 40s. You could be more three-dimensional, not just the wife or the mother.

I think more things are becoming socially acceptable. I think that just by having more media, whether that's TV or Internet, we're able to see more things.

All you see on television are debased images.

Television has made places look alike, and it has transformed the way we see. A whole generation of Americans, maybe two, has grown up looking at the world through a lens.

All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.

Anytime I'm given scripts where I'm sort of the fantasy girl, it's hard for me because that's not real and I don't think it's a great thing to put out there consistently.

Nothing is really real unless it “happens” on television…Television has brought an inversion of our consciousness. When we take our eyes off the tube, we see things that are not quite authentic – or rather, which gain authenticity only by their resemblance to how things happen on television

I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.

I grew up watching television. I'm a television addict. I had all these heroes, but they didn't look like me.

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.

On 'Being Mary Jane,' I learned to embrace sex symbol.

Some people in America don't ever interact with black people outside of television, so we should give them real, believable characters.

I just didn't see anyone on TV who looked like me, and then I saw George Takei being cool and piloting the spaceship on television.

I think TV, at least most immediately, perhaps more so than film, is a reflection of 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.

Look, to be honest, when certain movies like 'Ninja Assassin' came out, that had a sexy, sexy Asian man with a six-pack, that made some people think, 'Maybe I should go out there and date an Asian dude.' And that did pretty good for us in a way of representation.

I know when I was a kid I saw only one color of beauty, I saw only one kind in all the billboards and all magazines and the video clips. One kind and it was so frustrating.

With any minority group, it takes a strong presence in the public eye to make a change because everything nowadays is social media.

I think representation is the most important thing in the world. People who are young look up to the things that they see in the media. They want to relate and to be able to say, 'Wow, I can be successful.'