Negative Representation Quotes

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad.

All you see on television are debased images.

Pakistanis are rarely introduced in popular media in any form except as a member of your friendly terrorist cell next door.

When you see a Jamaica video, it's always the hood. Everybody in the video's got guns, and the world looks at it like that's what Jamaica's about. And it affects the economics of the music.

But I think the image that's thrown out on television is a bad image. Because you see players who want to imitate hip-hop stars. And the NBA is taking advantage of the situation.

That's what media do. They make you out to be a monster.

I loved wrestling, and I wanted to go out and entertain people and all that stuff, so I get trained, and when they decided, 'Hey, you're ready for a match, and you've got to start thinking about a character,' I was thinking this guy and this guy, and they go, 'No, no, no - you're a Muslim. You've got to be a bad guy.'

No other group (traditional Christians) is so consistently maligned on prime-time television. These defamatory portrayals betray a deep-seated hostility.

It hurts that, you know, the media's made me into sort of this like punching bag or cartoon character-they think that I don't have any feelings, and, you know, it hurts like anyone else.

Because I want every kid to be viewed as a person rather than as a member of a certain race does not mean that I'm not black enough. . . . Do they want me to be positive just for black kids and negative for everybody else?

There is so much going on in world, even just on the Internet. I think TV should push to put some of the positive things going on in shows, and also to discuss more of the negative things so more people can relate.

The difficult part of writing about someone you don't admire is that it's easy to demonize them. What you get then is a cackling villain, twirling their mustache at every dastardly deed they commit.

I think the media and the Internet and all that stuff, has created this perception of black women as these mammy types, kind of angry, you know, full of pent up emotions and resentments. And that these women are people to feared rather than loved.

I didn't want 'Ramy' to be a commercial, like 'Hey, Muslims are good!' We're underrepresented, so the instinct when we get an opportunity like this is to show people that we're good, that we have the same shared values. What's more important to me is showing that we have the same flaws.

In the old-fashioned sitcoms, to be gay was, in itself, funny, and you laughed at the characters rather than with them.

The reporter claimed he was going to write the article from my point of view. Instead, he made me sound like a little idiot. It made me never want to do another interview again.

There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.'

So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.

The content that Jessica Nigri puts out, really displays cosplay in the wrong light.

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.'

I certainly know all about the Jersey jokes that amuse the rest of the country. You've probably heard them. Our state bird is the mosquito. Our state tree is dead. It doesn't help that we are represented on television by Tony Soprano and 'Jersey Shore.'

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.

I think the part of media that romanticizes criminal behavior, things that a person will say against women, profanity, being gangster, having multiple children with multiple men and women and not wanting to is prevalent. When you look at the majority of shows on television they placate that kind of behavior. If you go through a weekly Monday through Friday, it's all there. It's in how people on the sitcoms and cop shows talk to each other.

When you see a movie, they always put the Latino on the bad side or in a tacky way. It's not like that. Latinos are shining like a diamond.

The media portrayal of women is always angled towards looking thinner and skinnier and... that's not good.