A Quote by Mo Abudu

Whenever Hollywood makes films about us, it's 12 Years a Slave or The Butler or The Help. That is not the sum total of who we are as a people. — © Mo Abudu
Whenever Hollywood makes films about us, it's 12 Years a Slave or The Butler or The Help. That is not the sum total of who we are as a people.
Perhaps, despite my objections, the success of films like: 'The Help,' 'Django,' 'The Butler,' or '12 Years a Slave,' will further persuade Hollywood to widen its view and edit its erroneous perception of what a commercial black film can look like.
We know there needs to be diversity in storytellers telling their own stories. I think there's a beautiful forward movement in that direction with McQueen telling '12 Years A Slave,' with Coogler telling 'Fruitvale,' and with Daniels telling 'The Butler.'
I don't care about Hollywood films. I'm not against Hollywood films, you know? Hollywood films were very good before, in the 1950s.
I think the whole stigma of 'black movies' is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like '12 Years A Slave,' to 'The Butler,' to 'The Best Man,' to 'Ride Along,' to even 'Think Like a Man' from last year - these movies are just good movies.
Whenever I sign a couple of films, people say I'm not paying attention to my constituency. Whenever I go to Rampur or elsewhere, people ask me about my films. It is strange, really.
Hollywood is like life, you face it with the sum total of your equipment.
I was making films when I was about 12 years old - Super-8 films.
Well, you know the old line - to be nominated is what it's all about. I think that I've done pretty well - I've had about 46, or 47 nominations from my movies, and my films have won about 12 awards in total, so I don't really have any complaints.
What Hollywood has done through the years is glamorized it even more, made it sexy, made it sensuous, and dwelled on those pleasure aspects, completing ignoring the fact that Hollywood as an industry, was pointing the gun at young people - pointing a gun at them when they were 12 to 14 years.
If you take something like the slave-auction sketch, the warmth of the light gives it a crisp 12 Years a Slave look. And your eye tells your brain, "I should be taking this seriously."
In the last 10 to 12 years when things were not going my way, I was just writing scripts. I have a bank of 10 to 12 scripts for web-series, films and short films.
I didn't know anything about '12 Years a Slave.' Not the book, not Solomon Northup, which I was quite shocked by, once I'd read it, that it wasn't a seminal text. I think it deserves to be.
Whenever I used to watch Hollywood films, I used to feel, when would Tollywood make such films?
You know, our country's being ripped apart. And let me tell you, this is largely an economic issue, too. You know that workers, hard-working people, middle class people, haven't had a salary increase effectively in 12 years, all right? So for 12 years, they're making less now in many cases than they made 12 years ago.
The story [in 12 Years a Slave] serves as a metaphor for the fear of having your family taken away, and for being abused in such a horrific way. I lost it a lot of times watching that film, particularly when seeing the grace of the man when he finally makes it back home aged, changed, forever brutalized, and yet he apologizes to his family for his long absence. That was such a profoundly moving moment capturing the triumph of dignity over the disgraceful behavior of those involved in the slave trade.
I am the sum total of what I have been confessing through the years.
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