There just aren't enough positive portrayals of Latino life in film.
Growing up, I'd watch 'The Cosby Show' and 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air;' I'd look at the little brown girls and be inspired by them.
There is a perception within our community and the world that black people don't love each other. That we don't fight for each other. That perception is so dangerous. We need positive images to counter the negative portrayals we see every day. And positive doesn't mean perfect. Perfect is boring.
Gay culture is surviving and thriving. Some activists believe the recent rise in homophobic violence might be a gauge of the success of positive gay images.
The large ensemble cast and the fact that it was being shot in New York, combined with a lot of strong positive images as far as African Americans are concerned, really turned me on to The Best Man.
Black women do not have as many positive images in the media as we should.
I think anytime you can share images that make young women feel a sense of belonging when they might not be feeling their best or their strongest is so cool.
Until the mid-seventies, the traditional or classic lesbian was always a spinster and often a tweedy intellectual, with a stark glamour that titillated men and women alike. This is the woman that feminists destroyed when they pressured the media for 'positive images' of lesbians.
I'm a person who watches TV all the time - all the time; I love TV. And I really think that the media heavily influences how we as a society behave towards each other. And one of the things that I find to be lacking on television are positive images of diversity.
If you're a teacher, for instance, there are ways to have positive representation of gay people in the classroom. Making sure that, historically, people are noted and archived, and that kids are getting just positive images of people who are gay.
When we've had images that perpetuate the negative stereotype of people of color, we've always had 'The Cosby Show' to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that kinda leaves us not in a great place in terms of having the wide scope of the images of people of color.
