Jessica Williams Quotes

We're into this barrage of pop culture - you know, TV, movies, the Internet. We become creatures that we've made up, made of certain different flotsam from pop culture and certain different personas that are in style.

Multiculturalism isn't about culture, it's about power.

The entertainment industry is vast and is a reflection of the society we live in.

Art may imitate life, but life imitates TV.

By ignoring a lot of American culture you can write more interesting stories. Unfortunately, if you were writing about America as it is, you'd be writing about a lot of people sitting in front of television sets.

Lots of boys pick strong messages about who they are and who they want to be from the media.

Writing about identity can be like maneuvering through a minefield, even when considering contemporary figures who have discussed the subject themselves.

People used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies. There's nothing more important for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing.

When I was a boy, there were three influences on children. The school, the family, and the church. Now there is a fourth---television.

Television is the first truly democratic culture—the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.

In the past, modeling influences were largely confined to the styles of behavior and social practices in one's immediate community. The advent of television vastly expanded the range of models to which members of society are exposed day in and day out.

I think TV, at least most immediately, perhaps more so than film, is a reflection of society.

Identity politics is not politics at all, since it precisely negates the political as such by re-construing political positions in ethnic terms, subsuming 'ought' under 'is.'

What is the consequent effect on a society of beings looking for themselves in the myths on the screen? It's safe to say that they have failed us, but I can't help it... I love Movies.

Hollywood and film portray who we are as a people and what we value as a culture.

Whether we're talking about race or gender or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is, it's where the learning is.

Mass entertainment in America has been dominated for a long time by the mode of documentary realism.

Most of my friends, growing up, were upper-middle-class white kids, so it was a different reality at home both culturally and linguistically. It created a lot of insecurities for me, but it also did a lot of amazing things that I didn't know were happening at the time.

The only people I don't reach on a very personal level are straight white men. They don't really need another entertainer dedicated for them exclusively, so they're fine.

When I speak, I don't speak for myself; I don't have the luxury of a Caucasian to be able to speak for myself. I speak for a whole community, and I represent so many different communities that that felt like a lot of pressure.

I'm so voracious with books, movies, TV, and I'm always interested in the way that different cultural values are presented or, in their absence, are present.

This whole idea of too much TV, I think is really gross. Because I feel like it's mostly white men who are saying it. And it's like, 'Yeah, man, there's too much TV for you, but by nature of there being so much TV, there are other voices being represented.' Isn't that a wonderful thing?

I'm a product of the 1970s, so I have a short attention span. You know, I grew up on cartoons and half-hour shows. So the stories that I'm interested in grab my attention very quickly, and they have to keep my attention.

The mainstream consumed our culture.

a steady diet of mass culture is a form of deprivation.