Winnie Holzman Quotes

People love to see themselves on screen in a way that makes sense and seems on point.

There's something to be said about seeing your face represented. There's just something really important about that. It just draws you in more.

When I get to meet my audience when I go speak at colleges or when I'm walking down the street, it's been really eye-opening how many people have been touched to see someone that looks like them on television.

We all know the power of film; we all know there's almost nothing more powerful than to see people on film that look and talk like you, like we do.

It's important for Asian American kids to see themselves in stories and to feel seen. They need to know that their stories are universal, too, that they, too, can fall in love in a teen movie. They don't have to be the sidekick; they can be the hero.

I think kids in every minority need to see people like themselves in books; that's an acknowledgment of their existence on this planet and in this society.

I just didn't see any toys that looked like me when I was a kid.

I think about what I grew up seeing, what I didn't see growing up, and what it felt like when I did see someone who I thought that I could relate to, just living their life on screen.

You search for images and stories and movies and music from people that look like you and sound like you and speak like you because you want to feel like, 'Oh, if they can do it, so can I.' There's a little bit of that need for validation, especially when you're younger and trying to look to someone to look up to.

Seeing someone that you can relate to in the media is everything as a child, and a lot of people are not granted that luxury.

I hope that every film I make has something to offer in the area of making people feel either vindicated or different in terms of who they are.

I grew up never seeing myself on-screen, and it's really important to me to give people who look like me a chance to see themselves. I want to see myself as the hero of any story. I want to see myself save the world from the bomb.

Spidey was the one comic I read consistently throughout my childhood. As someone who grew up a nerd, scrawny, and picked on in high school, I related very strongly to Peter Parker.

I loved reading when I grew up but did feel totally invisible because I couldn't see myself and my life reflected in the books I was reading.

I grew up when one of America's greatest black playwrights, August Wilson, was writing about life in Pittsburgh, but I never saw myself in any of his straight-male plays. And then I see 'Angels,' which was so honest and painful, and it had this black drag queen in it, Belize, with a big heart. I finally had a character to relate to.

Role models really matter. It's hard to imagine yourself as something you don't see.

I've gotten scripts over the years, but I believe it was the stories of 'Moonlight' and 'Hidden Figures' that really touched my heart and aligned with the messages that I felt were extremely important to me.

It's very important to me that people get to see themselves in stories. When someone tells me they've never seen themselves, I have a new goal.

I'm such a firm believer that everyone should see themselves in a character, and everyone should feel represented.

It's hard as a young person of a different ethnicity or background to look at the TV and not see anyone who looks like you. Representation is very important.

Fashion has always had the ability to affect lives, to touch people. But for the longest period of time, we've said, 'Oh, we're just pages of a magazine; that's what we all look at.' It's more than that.

I remember the first time I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and saw a Kerry James Marshall painting with black bodies in it on a museum wall... It strengthened me on a cellular level.

When I was growing up, in the '80s and '90s, I just never really saw myself reflected in the things that I had a liking for. It makes a difference.

I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.

I loved her music and the fact that she was a classically trained pianist and that her voice was so unique, but what made Nina Simone my hero is that I had never seen anyone in the public eye who looked anything like me at all, ever.