Something I often say is, 'I stand on the shoulders of the people who came before, and I'm ready to lift up people to stand on my shoulders.' And one of the ways we can do that is to hire them.
Daniel Dae KimRead
I consciously think about the ethnicity of every character that I create and cast. But one thing that is equally important is quality representation. It's not enough to put an African-American in there, a female in there, a gay character in there: How significant is their contribution? Can they drive the story?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Diversity in storytelling should be meaningful and impactful, not just superficial inclusion.
Daniel Dae Kim emphasizes the importance of quality representation in storytelling, asserting that simply including diverse characters is not sufficient. The focus should be on the significance of these characters' contributions to the narrative, highlighting that they should drive the story rather than serve as mere tokens of diversity.
Themes
DiversityRepresentationStorytellingInclusionQuality
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion on representation in film and television at a media studies class.
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All quotes →Diversity is more than just a buzzword to me. It's my life.
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