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.
— Justin Simien
The mark of a really great satire is its ability to seem prophetic, and I think that the television culture that film predicted really came true in the age of reality television and is a testament to how great it really is.
You watch 'Malcolm X,' and then Netflix recommends 'B.A.P.S.,' and you're like, 'What? Those movies have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but OK.' They don't recommend other historical biopics - it's 'B.A.P.S.' and 'Ghost Dad.'
I talk about being a 'what' to people. Like, being gay in mainstream society is a different kind of 'what' than being black. They don't always jive. It's confusing and leads to these really awkward personal stories that have just been in me for awhile.
Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others.
'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.
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.
I'm a lover of film and storytelling. I believe that I was put on earth to tell stories, and I'm not interested in telling the same stories over and over and over again.
I was blessed enough to know that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a kid, the first time I realized that that was something people did for a living.
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.
As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'
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.
One of the things that I love about Robert Altman's movies is that, really, a Robert Altman movie is just a bunch of short films about various people told at the same time.
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.
I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial.
For me it's just, I have too many ideas, man. It's a problem, actually.
I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still?
'Color-blind' comes up - people say 'Oh, I'm color-blind and therefore can't be accused of racism,' but I think that if we are going to have an honest dialogue about racism, we have to admit that people of color are having a different experience.
Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group.
In the press, there's this desire for the black audience to be this monolithic thing that always responds to the same stars. That's a really reductive way of looking at the black audience.
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 think unless we have an honest conversation about race and identity in this country, we're never going to get anywhere.
I never liked 'Donnie Darko' quite as much as my film school peers.
I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition.
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.
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.
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.
You can't get along in society without an identity.
Balance, I think, and self-care is something I want people to really take to heart.
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.
Shonda Rhimes has figured it out, of getting multiracial casts on television and appealing to everybody.
Racism is systemic: It's oppression that's built into the laws, legislation, into the way neighborhoods are policed, and into job opportunities and health care and education.
I remember distinctly not seeing myself. I didn't see myself in black culture, white culture, mass culture.
I remember the first time that I realized that being black meant that I wasn't allowed certain things. It was in the fourth grade, and it was who I thought was my best friend not inviting me to his birthday party because I would be the only black kid there. It was the first time I ever felt restricted, and it certainly wasn't the last time.
Everyone at a performing arts schools is weird. The weirder you were, the better. If you weren't weird in some way, they'd look at you and be like, 'Who's that square?'
The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going.
The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism.
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.
If you walk out of a movie that's meant to be about race in our country, and you're feeling good and happy, then that movie didn't tell you all of the truth. It's too big of an issue, and it's too complicated for you to feel good. It's something you should feel like you need to talk about.
I think great movies do promote conversation, great movies are honest, and great movies are sometimes polarizing.
I want to make movies in every genre.
Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South.
I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that.
'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's not new to attempt to vilify the minority that speaks about their oppression. That's not a new thing.
I want the Latino 'Do the Right Thing' to happen. I want filmmakers whose voices are not represented to get a shot.
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.
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?
Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human.
