Shura Quotes

When I first started to write, I was aware of being queer, but I didn't write about it. Queer poems would probably not have been accepted by the editors I sent them to.

After the 'Fallon' set, I had a lot of queer people message me about how much it meant to see a queer perspective on late night TV.

Historically a publicly unaccepted but incredibly rich culture, queer love was only able to exist privately for a long time, expressed in society through coded art forms.

I love St. Vincent. She is like our queer rock goddess and that's so needed.

A lot of artists I like end up being queer. Or maybe it's a subconscious thing that you can identify of, like, 'Oh this person understands the nuances of the romantic narrative of a queer person, or the social narrative of a queer person.' And then you discover, lo and behold that they are a queer person.

The stories I grew up with, whether it came to queer representation or representation of anyone that was different, it was always a story of, like, very sad, usually ended up with somebody dying, and it made the idea of being queer or different really scary, actually.

There are a lot of queers starved for entertainment from their own community.

By the time I finished 'Poison,' the New Queer Cinema was branded, and I was associated with this. In many ways, it formed me as a filmmaker, like as a feature filmmaker I never set out to be.

What I would love is for a normalization of queer characters on TV.

I grew up in a time where there were no queer digital references.

People often ask me why I choose to primarily play queer characters, and my answer is that as a queer man, I choose to align myself with projects in which I can be of service for a purpose greater than myself: to be for an audience of queer people of color, something I didn't have the privilege of seeing as a young man.

What we do is provide a suggestion. We say, 'We're queer. We're going to do this; we're going to open up the space to queer thought.' People don't have to show up, but they do.

My brownness is something that I can't hide. There are some straight-acting or straight-passing queer people out there, but I'm not one of them. This is something I would rather not have to hide.

I think, from the beginning, I was healed and inspired by queer culture, and Christine and the Queens, as an idea from the beginning, is queer because it questions the norm.

It's so important to recognize that there have been fabulous queer artists all throughout our history.

I think the earnestness of what we're saying and what other bands like us are totally saying - or other queer bands - is 'We exist.'

Coming of age as a young queer man of color, it was a rarity to see any reflections of myself portrayed in mainstream media. Turning on the television or going to the movies was an escape into the imagination, yet it did not allow me a place of true connection to what I was viewing on the screen in front of me.

It's important to tell queer stories and to show queer relationships in a very normal setting.

We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.

I hope 'Hellcat' is picked up again in years to come by people who realize just how queer it is: not just in its characters but its sensibility.

People misinterpret my emotions towards Nirvana because I've said things about how something happened with grunge that took a little bit of fun out of things. It's no offense to Nirvana; they were one of the greats, obviously. But something died there, too, and we haven't quite gotten the groove back.

My films might have been queer - because I was - but they were not gay.

There were interesting ways that queerness could hide out and get played out pre-Stonewall. It is part of a vast history that is getting forgotten quickly as we trumpet forward into gay marriage and gays in the military and a much different cultural attitude toward gay lives.

Queerness isn't just Lady Gaga and overpriced drinks and fauxhawks. It's James Baldwin and Bea Arthur and Gertrude Stein and Gore Vidal.

I read everything and anything related to being queer. I found solace in reading authors like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, who would become my activist staples - their words helped me grow up and taught me how to be bold and courageous. By studying them, I came to understand that being young and queer and black would not be easy.