A Quote by Gabourey Sidibe
One of my personal plights in this business is about playing 'The Sassy Black Girl.'
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Playing normal is hard; especially playing normal that's not you. The biggest challenge in playing Alicia is trying to make a teenage girl seem fully formed and not the quintessential moody teenager with a quippy, sassy line here and there.
It's people who look like me, just seeing representation of everyone. I didn't get that when I was young. I only saw one black girl that was on a Disney show, that was known for being the sassy, coocoo, that type of girl.
When I started, it was all meter maids or the sassy nurse, or the sassy receptionist in the hospital. And I felt like: Are those the only jobs that large, black women have?
The sassy black woman who can land a good joke was sort of my go-to audition. Or playing a struggling mother.
Think about how much fashion profits from black culture and how underrepresented we are in the industry. If you insist on using black celebrities to peddle your merchandise and add a cool factor to your front row, it is indecent to not care about the plights of that person's community.
Obviously, I can't tell the story of what it is to be a black girl, but maybe I can tell something else. Girlhood is not about what it's like to be a black girl, it's about what it's like to be a girl.
I read this book when I was young. It's about a black girl growing up in Heaven, Ohio. The cover has a black girl with clouds behind her. It was the first book cover I ever saw with a girl that looked like me.
When I was coming up, we didn't have the movement of Black Girl Magic or Black Girls Rock, but my parents made it their business to make sure I saw positive images of myself and celebrated images of black women.
The black characters on TV are the sidekicks, or they're insignificant. You could put all the black sidekicks on one show, and it would be the most boring, one-dimensional show ever. Even look at the black women on 'Community' and 'Parks and Recreation' - they are the archetype of the large black women on television. Snide and sassy.
I'm really attracted to playing strong, outspoken, sassy women. And I love playing characters who have a little bit of conflict or who can be controversial.
I would love 'Awkward Black Girl' to be on television, with the right team of people who understand and get it. If 'Awkward Black Girl' could make it to HBO starring a dark-skinned black girl, that would be revolutionary.
Those who say "it's not personal, it's just business" are lying. All business is personal, and the best business is very personal.
I've always been 'other' in all the spaces that I've been in. Even when I first moved to America, just the idea that I was a dark-skinned black girl from England with an accent. It's one thing to be a black girl, but it's another to be a dark black girl. I was chastised for that. I was chastised for the way I spoke.
That word sassy - it haunts me. I keep getting the sassy thing.
When you're the only girl in a family of men, you have to be pretty sassy.
There are expectations in how you play your character as a black woman, to be sassy and the same kind of feel, as if there are no quirky black women. I struggle with those things constantly, trying to add dimension to my work, and that's the goal, too.
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