I think that black people making art, women making art, and certainly black women making art is a disruptive endeavor - and it's one that I enjoy extremely.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'
My interest as an artist is to illuminate the lives of black folks. I definitely am focused on films that illustrate all that we are and all our nuance and all our complicated beauty and mess, and when you're telling those stories, you gotta have black actors.
It's true that there are people who live the idea of being an artist, as opposed to the idea of making art.
Artists should be free to create what we want. I believe there's a special value in work that is a reflection of oneself as opposed to interpretation. When I see a film or a TV show about black people not written by someone who's black, it's an interpretation of that life.
It's unfortunate that a lot of people think African-American female artists are monolithically R&B this-or-that, don't have to do anything by default.
I honestly think that's one of the greatest motivators of art - the fear of not making great art.
Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living.
I'm not interested in making all-black films - I come from a very diverse culture; I want to work with every type of person. I work a lot with women executives because they seem to be a lot more open minded about that and a lot more progressive in that way.
The roles that I feel I get, or handed to me, or whatever, are not that interesting. I don't think it's a problem that's specific to black women. I think it's a problem that's specific to movie-making in America.
There isn't only one way that black art or entertainment is represented, and that's the most important thing. We're permeating every style. We're claiming and, when necessary, appropriating all kinds of forms. Nothing is forbidden, because it's not what black people do: because it's not what we think of as black art.