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" I never quite lived up to the image of the black man as I saw it growing up. I was never listening to the right music at the right time or wearing the right clothes at the right time. I was still listening to Michael Jackson, and everyone had sort of moved on to gangster rap. Alanis Morissette when everyone else was listening to En Vogue. "

Justin Simien

Growing Up

Music

Man

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" I think we all have identity crises throughout our lives. "

" We get caught in our little silos and end up working against ourselves. And I think social media culture really encourages that, because you're really just shouting into a void hoping someone picks up on what you're saying. "

" 'Blue is the Warmest Colour' - I'm not a lesbian, I'm not French, I'm not a woman, but I saw so much of myself in those women and in those characters. I saw different parts of myself than I ever would've seen if I hadn't seen that film. "

" It is frustrating having to walk through America having to bob and weave people's impressions of me because they see a tall black guy walking down the street. That is frustrating. "

" The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism. "

" I took an internship at Focus Features while I was in film school. I was really interested in how specialty movies were marketed and found their audience despite being about topics that were outside of the mainstream. "

" I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of that story in a drawing notepad at home. "

" The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going. "

" I tend to take on too many projects at the same time, but as I've always done, I will continue to shift my focus onto whatever feels most urgent in the moment. "

" There can't be reverse racism against a group that is not at a disadvantage. "

" That is just the reality of being a marginalized person in this country: you have to deal with the psychological impact of your oppressor - whether that's being a woman dealing with men or gay people dealing with straight people or trans people dealing with everybody else. "

" I love great prestige television, but because I make television, sometimes I don't want to, like, you know, fall into a very heavy cerebral drama. "

" There are a plethora of ways of being black, just like there's many ways to being white. "

" Basically, the system works to my disadvantage for no other reason than that I am a person of color, and I am telling stories about people of color. "

" Everyone is very aware that, not only do we have a race problem, but it's so pervasive that it affects national and global politics on a scale that I don't think a lot of people imagined. "

" It occurred to me that by naming the film itself 'Dear White People,' I could tap into the burgeoning meme culture as well as make a meta-commentary about the controversies within the film. "

" Black people are experiencing a systemic disadvantage, and it goes back to slavery, which was not that long ago. "

" America is a different country, and it will forever be a different country after the election of Donald Trump. "

" I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie. I'm not a fan of, okay, 'wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up - we'll figure it out in post.' I hate that. "

" '2001: A Space Odyssey' - I'd watched and hated it seven times before it provided the first 'religious experience' I'd ever had watching a film. Finally, I was able to pick up on what the film was transmitting almost entirely through dialogue. "

" For whatever reason, gay characters, or characters that deal with sexuality issues, who are black, in 'black films'... are typically not dealt with with any sort of complexity. They're exoticized: their being gay is sort of the point. "

" I remember distinctly not seeing myself. I didn't see myself in black culture, white culture, mass culture. "

" I loved Lena Dunham's 'Girls.' "

Justin Simien

Loved

" It's called 'Dear White People,' but really, it's about these black characters and how they are involved or not involved in a racial scandal in ways that might surprise them and others, right? "

" I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves. "

" Daring to make films of any kind and thus invite the possibility of ridicule was an internal battle of mine for many years as I worked on the screenplay for what would become 'Dear White People' beginning at the end of George W. Bush's second term. "

" When you're part of a society where you're constantly having to define your identity and sort of negotiate with what the mainstream culture thinks you are, you have less energy and time to figure out who you are when you go home at night. "

Justin Simien

Home

Culture

" If I just wanted to put clean, perfect images of black people on the screen for an hour and a half, first of all, there are other people already doing that, and they're making a lot of money doing it. "

" Part of my struggle with being gay was that a lot of my homophobia was internalized because of the cues that I was - received. I didn't see anybody like myself in the culture. RuPaul was the closest to a gay, out black man that I had growing up. "

" I think art is much more valuable when it's honest. If it's not honest, it's just propaganda. "

Justin Simien

Honest

Art