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" If you examine any aspect of the human condition long enough, you really do have to start laughing at it. Because the business of being human is kind of ridiculous. "

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" The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies. "

Justin Simien

Choice

Hollywood

Movies

" It is a fine line between making fun of the right thing and making fun of the wrong thing. And the language oftentimes is the same. "

" 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. "

" I never liked 'Donnie Darko' quite as much as my film school peers. "

" I think I have a threshold for taking things too seriously. "

" I often have to play a role to get what I want in my life. At the same time, I can't do that without also nourishing who I really am and being aware of my true self and the ways in which I'm not bound by my race or sexual orientation or class or country or whatever. "

" I definitely have fun commenting on the real world and interpreting through the 'Dear White People' lens. "

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

" Shonda Rhimes has figured it out, of getting multiracial casts on television and appealing to everybody. "

" There is an obsession with black tragedy. If you see a black movie, it's typically historical, and it tends to deal with our pain. And listen, there have been some excellent films made in that vein, and there are some painful parts of black history that should be explored, but it is kind of weird that only those films bubble up to the surface. "

" I see racism as institutional: the rules are different for me because I'm black. It's not necessarily someone's specific attitude against me; it's just the fact that I, as a black man, have a much harder time making an art-house movie and getting it released than a white person does about their very white point of view. That's racism. "

" I went to a school called Chapman University, which is a wonderful film school. It was a great program, but it was very white, and it was a culture shock for me because I grew up in Houston, Texas, and I went through what they call magnet schools, so my friends were like a Benetton ad. "

Justin Simien

Friends

School

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" The downside of doing a multi-protagonist movie is that you don't get to service each character as you would if they were the central protagonist of the movie. "

" Every movie has the thing it's about, and then, deep down, it has this thing that it's really about. 'Star Wars' is not really about a space opera, action, and the galactic quest. It's about self-doubt. "

" There is no monolithic black culture. It's completely different for someone born in Harlem to someone born in Houston or London with one exception, which is that people contributing to black culture have the experience of being black. "

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

" I have different privileges because I am a man, and I have to acknowledge that and realize that another person of color who is also a woman is having a different experience than I am. "

" 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. "

" I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that. "

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

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

Justin Simien

Loved

" I tend to be collaborative, and I want to hear other people's ideas. Especially with actors, I want them to feel like they can breathe life into their characters. "

" It's not new to attempt to vilify the minority that speaks about their oppression. That's not a new thing. "

" 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. "

" 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. "