Ory Okolloh Quotes

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.

I realized that I was African when I came to the United States. Whenever Africa came up in my college classes, everyone turned to me. It didn't matter whether the subject was Namibia or Egypt; I was expected to know, to explain.

In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.

How is it that the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue allowed such a destructive and parodied image of itself to become the intellectual coin of the realm overseas?

We, as a culture, use television as at least one of the great arbiters of truth. Even though we know it's fiction, when we see it portrayed, we believe it. We recognize it as part of our culture.

Aladdin' was one of the few things that I watched as a kid where I was like, 'Oh, that guy looks like me and has a similar culture to mine.'

I'd heard so many stupidities about my country since I left Iran. People had watched this stupid movie Not Without My Daughter [in which Sally Field plays an American who rescues her daughter from her estranged in-laws in Iran]; I heard so many things like that. I did not make Persepolis for Iranians. It was my answer to the rest of the world, to say, "Let me give you another point of view."

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television.

I'm writing a film. With our access to these powerful media, we're going to take over, because it's really disgusting what is put out there now to be consumed.

Whoever controls the media—the images—controls the culture.

The fact that television is raising our moral conscience is a good thing.

I have aimed at a higher object than mere amusement, desiring so to picture the Irish character, as to make it more justly appreciated, more rightly estimated, and more respected in England.

The thing that is being lost is heritage. In Africa, religion and advertisement and television and media hype have gotten Africans to where they are convinced psychologically that their own heritage is heathen, pagan, barbaric, savage, primitive.

I grew up in a pretty strict household in the sense that we just didn't have cable, so I wasn't familiar with what stand-up comedy was. I remember telling my friends that I thought stand-up comedy was like the thing that happened before the episode of 'Seinfeld.'

Television, above all, is the place where people can see the world they live in, and if the world they live in is a world without the arts, so much the worse for television, and so much the worse for the viewers.

In my opinion, it would be a lot better for the culture - meaning the culture of America - if there was more diversity in terms of storyline. In terms of the kind of content that you see about Americans of African descent on the screen.

Media truly has the power to create and shift culture.

The world in which we live is diverse, and I think television and film should reflect that.

The dignity of everyday life - the beauty of it, the attitude of it - is what I live around. And it is never on screen, and it is certainly never associated with Africa. If we see Africa at all, it is always used as a backdrop: a big blob of a continent rather than a specific street or a country or a place.

For so long, the world has viewed West Indian culture as semiliterate and backward, which it is not. In my work, I have tried to give that world an exposure so the world can better understand it.

I do want to be involved in quality projects that say something positive about the Latino community.

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

I think cinema is a reflection of the society and whatever is being shown is because of the climate we're living in. It is relevant, topical, and surely somewhere it's impacting people who can relate to these circumstances.

TV needs to be the medium for progress, not degeneration. There needs to be more programming for children. Plays need to become more responsible.

There have been a lot of things where communities haven't been portrayed in a positive light, and even when we were doing 'Youngers' in Peckham, people were cautious about what we were filming.