A Quote by Riz Ahmed
Whether you look at 'Glee' and its normalization of gay identity or you look at the work of Martin Scorsese and the Italian-American community, American culture is able to take these stories, which are seen as marginalized, and just turn them into American stories. And you don't think twice about it.
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I think the name of the show, 'This American Life' - we named it that just because it seemed like it made the thing feel big. But we don't think about whether it's an American story or not. We happen to be Americans. I think for the stories to work, they have to be universal.
If you look at the best-seller list for American fiction, they're all sequels to detective stories or stories about hunting serial killers. That's what's called American fiction these days.
Explain to me what Italian-American culture is. We've been here 100 years. Isn't Italian-American culture American culture? That's because we're so diverse, in terms of intermarriage.
I'm interested in Native American and African American stories, and LGBTQ stories and stories of persons of mixed heritage. These are the stories I want to see onscreen and on the pages.
The idea of taking classic American stories and reinterpreting them for a time and place is not just commercially viable. These stories also carry a sensual nature of what it meant to be an American, and they deserve to be reinterpreted.
I love and admire the American culture and the American dream. I learnt so many things about the American shoe industry and marketing strategies. I caught the secrets of American casual wear, that is elegant and wearable, retro and modern, and mixed it with an Italian touch, luxurious and handmade.
I'm from a Lebanese-American family. And I've been had lot of contacts and - with Arab-American community, especially Arab-American filmmakers and actors and so forth. It's a community that, a minority that really hasn't been heard from enough. And so many of the stories that are told about Arab-Americans these days are just negative portrayals in the news, but also in television and film. So we're - we set out to try and offset some of those stereotypes.
When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more universal stories.' But anything can happen to a Chinese American girl - just as much of the canon of English literature involves white men or women.
You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.
I'm comfortable, culturally I'm American, my perspectives are American, but from an aesthetic perspective do other people look at me and think that I'm American?
The more I know about America, the better I'll be at performing American characters and American stories.
The rise of anime had to happen. If the Japanese could tell better American stories, it would go through the roof. They still tell stories which are very much oriental. I take my hat off to them.
I don't want to come and conquer American films or the American market. I just want to do movies that I care about, stories that I like.
We do not have an American culture. We have a white American culture and a black American culture. So when those two groups try to get together, [it's] very difficult because they each feel like they have the right to their culture.
There's something really beautiful about people from all different walks of life... who are bound together by this big idea about American identity and American unity and American interests.
People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. They have a particular culture that infuses the whole culture and makes it richer and more interesting. I think if we can expand that attitude to embrace African-Americans and Latino-Americans and Asian-Americans, then we will be in a position where all our kids can feel comfortable with the worlds they are coming out of, knowing they are part of something larger.
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