Ira Sachs Quotes

The term 'new queer cinema' and the films of mine that were associated with that term are from a very, very different time, one almost entirely defined by the AIDS era. It was a very different social and cultural regard for the lives, the experiences, the worth of gay people.

I just want to be clear before we decide to do this together: I'm gay. My music is gay. My show is gay. And I love that it's gay. And I love my gay fans, and they're all going to be coming to our show. And it's going to remain gay.

It's going to take generations of gay people marrying before these things start to feel natural. We haven't had it long enough to remake it as our own, so it does feel like you're getting dressed up in straight drag to do it.

I have put gay dating on the map.

One result of An American Family was that I became a gay role model.

I think it's interesting: What is the generational effect of the experience of being a gay person in America? For my generation, it was very difficult.

It's not being marketed as a gay show by a gay person. It's just Ellen DeGeneres.

I think there is much more queer visibility than there was when I was a kid. There is marriage, more trans visibility, and many more celebrities who are open about the sexuality. This was so not the case when I was a kid.

I grew up in a time where there were no queer digital references.

Sometimes you have to see the thing to know that it exists. Maybe there's a queer person in a town, but they don't feel comfortable or safe coming out, frankly, and the only representation they feel that they have or connection they have is on television or in a movie, and that's really powerful.

GLAAD has so much information and outlets about LGBTQ people and some of the issues we face and who we are.

Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human.

Drag is never going to be completely mainstream because it's still a queer art form.

People often ask me why I choose to primarily play queer characters, and my answer is that as a queer man, I choose to align myself with projects in which I can be of service for a purpose greater than myself: to be for an audience of queer people of color, something I didn't have the privilege of seeing as a young man.

A lot of the LGBTQ community accepted 'Tangerine,' which was something we worked really hard to achieve.

All our friends - so many friends are gay or lesbian and transgender. We're just in that world. We all went through the devastating time of the AIDS crisis, and I think that galvanized us to be more activists - AIDS activists.

We encrypt 'Drag Race' with the secret language that kept gay people linked for many years before the '80s.

There have been some good British gay films.

So much of what I do is inspired by and for the LGBTQ community and for everyone but, just, being a theater kid and wanting to do stuff that represents us in a positive light.

Pop music has a pretty good track record of embracing queer culture.

I think there's so many amazing LGBTQ artists, ranging from commercial to underground, that are influencing people at large.

What happened in the 80's was that all the men died of AIDS. That was a particularly depressing time because so many people passed away and it was a very desperate and lonely time, so I think a lot of people felt that we were somehow, unreceived. Not only by the disease but also by the public image of the disease. It really gave homophobia a real shot in the arm and changed the way people viewed gays, queers. It became an entirely different atmosphere.

More than 40 per cent of my viewers are female. When I do meetups and events, oftentimes the majority of people who show up are LGBTQ+. So I'm looking forward to better serving that community of fans.

One of the things that 'Love, Simon' is doing that hasn't been done before is it's a gay teen rom-com with a mainstream wide release and the backing of a studio that previous gay rom-coms have not had. I'm really excited by that.

I want more images onscreen because when I was growing up, I think, like, that one kiss in 'The Color Purple' was the one thing that I had. Or 'The Watermelon Woman.'