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" Our statement's on the screen. Awards won't make it better, and a lack of awards won't make it worse. "
Dee Rees
Awards
Better
Worse
Related Quotes:
" I think 'Mudbound' reveals the interconnectiveness of our stories. You can't separate out threads of history and race as economic construct. 'Mudbound' makes it very plain. Race is about commerce; it's not an actual thing. It's a fiction that was created to basically divide resources unequally. "
Dee Rees
Resources
You
History
" A producer has to want you. And if the producer trusts you and asks for your vision, it frees you up so much, not having to explain or fight for every decision. You're allowed to create. "
Dee Rees
Create
Decision
Fight
" I was going to study business administration at Florida A&M, at the height of Reaganomics. "
Dee Rees
Going
Study
Florida
" To have a simultaneous global audience as an artist is more than you could ever hope for. "
Dee Rees
You
Artist
Audience
" Knowing what you want is not a shortcoming. Let people deal with their own anxieties. "
Dee Rees
People
Deal
Knowing
" Before Charlottesville, it might have been easy to dismiss the plot of 'Mudbound' as no longer relevant. Now, I feel like audiences will be more receptive to the material - and to interrogating their personal histories after watching it. "
Dee Rees
Now
Personal
Easy
" For kids who are struggling, who are of faith, just reconciling yourself to the fact that God loves you, accepts you for who you are, is a big step in the healing, especially when your biological family is unaccepting of you. "
Dee Rees
Family
God
Step
" Contemporarily, we struggle with people worried about representation sometimes. It's a burden, as artists, that we take on that limits the work. It limits the characters people play. It limits the roles they want to do. "
Dee Rees
Play
People
Struggle
" Creatively, I just like interesting characters. So straight, gay, or whatever - like, whatever, wherever the characters are coming from or their lifestyle. "
Dee Rees
Lifestyle
Gay
Interesting
" When I first started going out to lesbian clubs, I felt a very binary recreation of hetero culture. There are butches and femmes, and I felt like I was neither of those things. I'm in a turtleneck and jeans and just learning to be comfortable in that space. I realized I don't have to be a certain way. "
Dee Rees
Jeans
Culture
Way
" The only advice I can give is to surround yourself with people who are friends and people who believe in you and your material and who are going to help you take it to the next level. It doesn't mean you don't listen to criticism, but you listen to it and edit it, and you figure out what you can take. "
Dee Rees
Yourself
You
Surround Yourself
" I'm interested in telling stories about characters that are interesting and who are challenging in some way, one that will make you think about them afterwards. "
Dee Rees
Interesting
Will
Way
" With friendship, it's hard sometimes - you don't outgrow your friends, but you do question how people are friends to you in different ways and how it's okay to cultivate other relationships outside of that. "
Dee Rees
Okay
People
Friends
" 'Mudbound,' you know, is about home. 'Mudbound' is about what it means to be a citizen, and 'Mudbound,' in fact, is set in this post-reconstruction era that we haven't really explored. You know, not since 'Sounder' have we even really explored that experience. "
Dee Rees
You
Home
Experience
" Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to. "
Dee Rees
Tension
Identity
Yourself
" Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you. "
Dee Rees
Saying
You
Room
" People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There's still housing discrimination and wage discrimination. "
Dee Rees
Water
People
Complacency
" In an industry that's uncertain and when you're in a lot of situations that are anxiety-causing, to have someone there who has your back unconditionally and cares for you and the material and would give anything to make sure everything is OK, makes you feel so much better. It gives you a sense of security as an artist. "
Dee Rees
Feel
Security
You
" I've been around many different lives, many different voices. It was amazing material for a writer. "
Dee Rees
Amazing
Voices
Writer
" I definitely felt the desire to, like - I definitely knew there was an elsewhere. I definitely knew that, like, if I were going to be free, I needed to be away from, kind of, like, Nashville and kind of get out of the South and get out of the country. "
Dee Rees
Country
Nashville
Desire
" I grew up in Nashville in a white suburb. We lived next to a Klan member. We didn't see hoods, but my dad knew that guy was a Grand Dragon. "
Dee Rees
White
Dragon
Lived
" For me, 'Pariah' is very much about that inner churn. It's about this person's emotional inner life, and that's really what I wanted to bring to 'Bessie.' "
Dee Rees
Person
Bring
Emotional
" My first job was at Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati, my second job was at a pharmaceutical company in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. My third job was at Palmolive. And I realized, three jobs in three years, maybe it wasn't the job. It had to be me. "
Dee Rees
Heights
Three
New
" I grew up listening to Mary J. Blige's music. When I initially met her, it was like, 'Oh, wow. I'm meeting this woman whose music was the soundtrack of my college years.' "
Dee Rees
Woman
Music
Listening
" I was interested with exploring the idea of who gets to be in possession of the land - how it's sometimes impossible to go back home, how family can be the thing that drags you down. "
Dee Rees
Home
Family
Impossible
" Actors need to know why they're saying what they're saying, more than just learning their lines. "
Dee Rees
Learning
More
Saying
" For 'Pariah,' people were surprised Kim Wayans was there, but comedians have a dark streak; they're comedians for a reason. "
Dee Rees
Reason
People
Dark
" 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.' "
Dee Rees
Kiss
Growing Up
Think
" I think art always comments on the time and place it was created. "
Dee Rees
Time
Always
Art
" If I can go three grandmothers back and find a slave, that means someone else can go three grandmothers back and find a slave owner. When you interrogate your histories, it forces you to rethink who you are and where you are. "
Dee Rees
Find
I Can
Three