Sayed Kashua Quotes

I'm called a terrorist in the Arab media still today.

A person's portrayal on TV isn't always how someone is.

When I came out publicly, some photo editors had a field day searching for pictures of me with a limp wrist or some other stereotypical gay signifier - as though, after decades in the public eye, they'd suddenly come across a trove of shots where I looked like a Cher impersonator.

The image of one country and its people amongst peoples of another country is largely created and sustained by the media.

I don't think I even have a clear perspective of how I'm depicted in the media.

I think a lot of times, when people who get a chance to meet me and be around me, they understand that I'm not the person that the media make me out to be.

It's definitely a sensitive topic to discuss, but I have felt, since I signed with the WWE, I was in a unique position to reestablish how Arabs were perceived in the WWE and western media.

In mainstream media, everything gets turned into a stereotype of ourselves.

From the American newspapers you'd think America was populated solely by naked women and cinema stars.

I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.

If I turn on the television, am I to believe that that is America? I'm sorry, I don't believe that's America.

I think it's important that readers know that not every celebrity is a freak.

Every president becomes a caricature. The press, partisans, late-night shows, and other arbiters of our culture these days boil down complicated and multi-faceted personalities into one-dimensional punchlines.

Because when you watch U.S. television, all the presenters and reporters, they're all out of central casting.

Many of the articles printed over the last few months have ended up painting a picture of me that is more than a little distorted.

I've given up on being accurately portrayed in the media.

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.

There's so many, 'no, black people aren't like that' barriers in mainstream media.

I don't think I'm portrayed in the media the way I really am - but then who is?

The media works in sound bites. They can make you look like a genius or stupid.

People always brand me as this person who is anti-Brady, and I don't think that I ever have been, except that occasionally I would like to talk about something else that I'm doing.

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.

People in D.C. are so psyched when anyone dramatizes them in an exciting way. They're a lot more open to looking at the nastier side of themselves than the media is.

I think lot of Muslims have gotten fatigued by the way Muslim characters, even 'positive' ones, are portrayed in the media.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.