I grew up in a largely black community during the '70s and '80s that scoffed at 'white' music. That music - folk, rock, some disco - was considered soulless, aberrant, just one more example of the Caucasian's desire to scream and yell and demand whatever their privilege and perpetual adolescence dictated they should demand.
Black excellence is a thing. People - from Beyonce Knowles to Venus and Serena Williams to folks you haven't heard of - are into it. It's less a movement than a standard: believers set the bar high not only for themselves but also for others who share their vision, especially when it pertains to black history, stories, and style.
'Moonlight' undoes our expectations as viewers, and as human beings, too. As we watch, another movie plays in our minds: real-life footage of the many forms of damage done to black men, which can sometimes lead them to turn that hateful madness on their own kind, passing on the poison that was their inheritance.
I don't think that there are many, many strong, black male role models who provide a certain kind of really American, Southern-based comfort that Madea grows out of. She's a signpost in our Obama world of traditional Christian values.
I think someone like Khandi Alexander, who's now on 'Treme,' is one of the most extraordinary actresses I've seen in years. But she's dependent on someone brilliant like David Simon to realize that and to give her a forum. Tyler Perry's not interested in that kind of nuance because it doesn't sell.
In the contemporary world, artists are almost entirely self-referential.
There is not enough time for anything, ever.
Julius Eastman is the kind of American genius not enough people know about.
I think that writers are best served by sticking to their writing. Not having loads of theories about the best way to position the writing. I think that if the writing is good and the point of view is strong, the writing is going to take care of itself.
One of the things that's great about writing for a magazine is that every week you get to be a different person. You're writing different things all the time and not slogging along for years on something.
I'm attracted to people who work their little plot of land and cultivate it and cultivate it.
I suppose that there are many novels that are set during the summer because it's a lonely time of year. Friends come and go, comfort comes and goes, which makes it a perfect time of year to indulge in melancholia.
When you work at a magazine, you have to tell the truth. When you're not working in that format, it's fun to see where your mind takes you when the dictates have nothing to do with anyone but yourself.
I think that Tyler Perry's genius really has been to tap into the domestic market. He knows what his audience is based on, having toured America for so long, and then giving them the blueprint for his films prior to the films coming out, and then the films have the built-in audience because they've seen it in theaters already.
Racism seduces us with its desire to categorize, shutting out the living and breathing and 'different' world all around us.
Inspiration takes many forms, but it's rarely pure.
My mother reveres artists, and my sister and I have inherited her love of art and the stories about its creation.
Our wishes are our most reliable mirror, and the black-and-white movies I'm most drawn to are about artists who suffer because art is a noble thing; suffering is such a small price to pay for the imagination.
It's dollars before art in Hollywood.
Dramas about addiction can be exciting to watch. And then dispiriting. Exciting because degradation is fascinating to follow from the relative safety and smugness of an 'appropriate' life, and dispiriting because if all that sad mayhem can happen to this or that character, what's to keep it from happening to me or you?
