I have a pretty good sense of when to express misgivings. And white critics are just as capable of pointing those things out and noticing them as people of color. Wesley Morris More Quotes by Wesley Morris More Quotes From Wesley Morris I do feel a responsibility to address things that are problematic, but I don't have to go out of my way to do that. Wesley Morris addressesresponsibilityway I don't see a lot of studio executives caring at all about what the culture is telling us. They think they make the culture. They're not out taking the temperature of things and using the results of whatever sort of cultural surveying they're doing to make movies. They're interested in doing things that people are already comfortable with, and taking those properties and filling them. Wesley Morris caringpeoplethinking Ultimately the social change has to come from the people who make the movies, so the people who make the movies have to look at the landscape and say to themselves, "Well, you know, these things are changing, and I'm okay with their having changed, and I think it's okay to start reflecting those changes through the movies we make." Wesley Morris peoplelooksthinking 'Brokeback Mountain' is a sad love story about two people who can't be together, and the reason that they can't be together is because being gay is a stigmatized thing. It would be interesting to have the same movie in which the two guys weren't in the closet and there was no shame about them being gay and they couldn't be together for other reasons. I still feel like we're a long way from that happening. Wesley Morris sad-lovegaytwo I like Nora Ephron. She wasn't a critic in the strictest sense of the word, but she did a lot of social criticism. She was so funny and so in the right place at the right time. Wesley Morris criticscriticismsocial I just have to be able to follow and enjoy the writer's voice and the writer's point of view. Liking what the person has to say is not really important to me. Wesley Morris voiceimportantviews I don't need the audience, but sometimes it's nice to have a gauge - not so I know how I feel, but so I get what is or isn't working for moviegoers. Wesley Morris gaugesniceneeds I love to go to the movies with people, but a lot of the time it's me in a room with a bunch of other movie critics, which is fine. Wesley Morris bunchpeoplerooms A movie is just like a work of art or a book or a piece of music. The intent of its maker is one thing, but its interpretation by an audience is something else. I don't stop at what the filmmaker wanted to do. Wesley Morris piecesbookart Anything produced and then exhibited for public view is open to interpretation. Wesley Morris interpretationviews If I like a movie, I'm definitely advocating for it, but it's not "you should see this" or "you shouldn't see this." I try to take a longer view about what the movie is doing and where it fits in the context of other things, in the way that certain good literary criticism tries to do the same thing. Wesley Morris criticismviewstrying Everybody brings their thing to their criticism. I bring this wealth of opinions and feeling and knowledge about race and gender and sexuality. I feel like I have it, I may as well express it, and if it's applicable to what I'm writing about and I'm not forcing it, I should try to use it, because it's interesting. It speaks to more than some people. Wesley Morris racewritingpeople You didn't have to read 'Playboy,' visit the mansion, wear pajamas, or even be straight: The effects of its ideas about women on the American psyche were totalizing. Women were inferior to men because, for 'Playboy,' they were scenery - pretty, passive, usually white, often blonde, there. Wesley Morris youwomenmenideas Part of what's mesmerizing about 'The Mechanics of History' is its physical eloquence - how dancerly it is. The men don't fall; they float. And when the trampoline restores them to the staircase, they move at a half speed. Cinema, they say, is 24 frames per second. Wesley Morris cinemamenhistoryfall There's power in turning to the past to illuminate the current state of things. Wesley Morris illuminatethingspowerpast Anyone who watches a lot of television, or listens to pop music, is familiar with a certain vision of America. If not exactly colorblind, this America is one in which different races easily interact, in which a white person might have an Asian boss, Hispanic stepson, or African-American frenemy. Wesley Morris bossvisionmusicwhite Nudity has never seemed to bother Grace Jones. Her art has thrived, in part, on a physical candor that both shocked people and redrew the boundaries of taste, beauty, and eroticism around her masculinity, ebony skin, and unrelenting intensity. Wesley Morris gracebeautypeopleart 'The Tree of Life' is a collection of conversations that lost souls and true believers have with themselves while keeping their heads to the sky. But the movie is church via the planetarium. Wesley Morris churchskytreelife Standing beneath the white light of an Apple store is like standing on a Stanley Kubrick movie set. His '2001: A Space Odyssey' predicted Jobs and a future where technology was our friend. Kubrick, of course, didn't like what he saw. And occasionally, I have my doubts. Wesley Morris futuretechnologyspacelight No, I don't know why Bobby and Peter Farrelly bothered with a 'Three Stooges' movie, either. But if they're anything like some men I know, their love for Moe, Larry, and Curly (and an assortment of fourth bananas) is deep, abiding, and unembarrassable. In other words: How could the Farrellys not? Wesley Morris deepwordslovemen
