American - Director | February 7, 1977 -
It's okay to be yourself and to love and accept yourself however you are.
Dee Rees
LoveYourselfBe YourselfYouOkay
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.
LearningCultureSpaceWayFirst
Culture - art, music, literature - is the long game, because it's the way to change people's ideas in a more personal way.
ChangeMusicArtCultureIdeasGame
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.
YourselfSurround YourselfPeopleYou
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.
WaterPeopleComplacencyHousing
I remember one summer I played, like, with the granddaughter of this known Klan member. Like, all summer we caught cicadas. And we had grown close, and so it was, like, time for her birthday party and I said 'Oh, like, what time do I come for your party?' And she's like 'Oh, no, you can't come to my house 'cause my parents don't like black people.'
BirthdayTimeParentsPeopleBlack
When you choose the hard things, it takes longer than you think to get it done, and if you choose the hard thing and have a very particular way you want to do them and are uncompromising in that, then sometimes it takes even longer.
ThinkYouChooseDoneSometimesWay
Nothing I do is didactic. I just want to hold up a mirror and say, 'This is who we are.'
MirrorSayWantNothingUpHold
You don't have to make your life look like anybody else says it should look.
LifeYouLookLikeYourShould
When I first came to New York, I was surprised by all these out teenagers who were openly on the street being who they were. That intrigued me because I was 27 and still struggling with being myself.
MyselfNew YorkMeBeing MyselfNew
Art makes you see people as individual, unique human beings. Art, in that way, allows us to see each other in particulate, as opposed to in aggregate.
ArtPeopleYouUniqueWaySee
I thought I'd get an MBA, and then I could be anything. And I'd write on the side. That was the idea.
ThoughtWriteSideAnythingGet
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