Jordan Gavaris Quotes

There's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.

I think, overall, there is a lack of diversity in the arts. I'm thinking about when I was in grad school: I could probably count on one hand the number of minority students in the graduate school program.

I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around there's just me and maybe one other coloured face.

My work has always been controversial within certain segments of the Asian-American community. This is a community that is generally not represented well at all on the stage, in the media, etc. So on those few occasions when something comes along, everybody feels obligated to make sure that it represents his own point of view.

African-Americans are always forced to learn the other culture, but the other culture is not forced to learn ours. I went to acting school at Juilliard, and we learned Shakespeare and Shaw, but we never did the work of a single African-American playwright, not August Wilson or Ntozake Shange or Imir Baraka.

I'm really passionate about representation in film. I feel like the world is dominated by such a small group of human beings. There are so many different kinds of people that aren't represented, that don't have characters who look like them.

Point-blank, there is not enough diversity in media.

The argument has been made that smart women on screen are already enough of a minority to make up for the lack of women of color. Nope. Not good enough.

I wish that all different types of people of all races and all upbringings were all equally represented in this industry that influences so many people.

I was making big paintings with mythological themes. When I started painting black figures, the white professors were relieved, and the black students were like, 'She's on our side.' These are the kinds of issues that a white male artist just doesn't have to deal with.

The number of Latino roles is very limited, and it's unfortunate there isn't more color-blind casting.

I was the only one at stage school who wasn't white.

Shows like 'Seinfeld' and 'Friends,' they have, like, one or two damn characters throughout the whole series that are minorities.

Of course we've been fighting against stereotypes from Day One at East West. That's the reason we formed: to combat that, and to show we are capable of more than just fulfilling the stereotypes - waiter, laundryman, gardener, martial artist, villain.

I believe black characters in fiction are still revolutionary, given our long history of erasure.

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

I was too Jewish for 'Flashdance.'

When I first came out to L.A., Hollywood's idea of a Latina was Mexican. It was almost like they had never seen or heard of an Afro-Latina before.

I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona.

I think Hollywood is so driven by money, the people who are making the decisions are not necessarily reflective of the melting pot, so what stories are you going to want to tell? You're going to want to tell stories about yourself.

It would be ridiculous for me to say anything negative regarding blacks having an equal opportunity on TV.

We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.'

I got sort of sick of seeing Asians being the blank, bland real estate agent or something. I didn't care. It didn't mean anything to me.

There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.