I wanted to write a show about an estate that wasn't sad or morbid, like a lot of shows portray working class life to be.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to portray working class life in a more positive and uplifting manner.
Michaela Coel highlights the importance of representation in storytelling, particularly in how working class life is often depicted in media. She aims to create a show that reflects the resilience and vibrancy of such lives rather than focusing on the sadness or morbid aspects typically associated with them, thereby challenging stereotypes and inviting a more nuanced understanding of different social realities.
In practice
This quote can inspire filmmakers to focus on uplifting narratives during a panel discussion.
In Britain, we need to start presenting the option of being a writer in front of black women. We need to present the idea of being a writer into poorer communities because the majority of black people in this country are working class. We need to let working-class people know that their voices are important.
I don't believe in comedy as a TV genre - I think there's drama that is funny. Because beyond the laughs, there has to be cost, and there has to be heart.
When you've got African parents, you go to uni, do finance, and go into accounting. But I'm not good with systems. I dropped out in my final year of college to become a Christian poet. Then went back to do my A-levels and went to uni in Birmingham to do political science and theology. I lasted 12 weeks.
Growing up on our estate, we were all different colours, but we were all really poor. I never really realised that black was a problem for some people.
We live in a world where if you're white, an upper-class male of extreme privilege, and able-bodied, and you're nothing that takes you away from that norm, then you're going to have - then the world will not assign you problems because of what you are. That is actually the world we live in.
Where I grew up, in Aldgate, east London, one of the poorest boroughs in the country, I saw lots that was real - the bankers with their briefcases, the man next door with five wives, the illegal immigrants in Flat 5. I'm from a world you rarely see on screen, and I want to show it off.
The flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful.
Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women.
I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist…..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.
The same God who created Rembrandt created you, and you are as precious in God’s sight as Rembrandt or anyone else.
Black storytelling can be about anything, absolutely anything, and within that it can be as enriching, as complex, beautiful, ugly as anything else. We are not seeing enough of those complexities on our stages.
It needs great art, learning to play with one's own life, to play on one's own life. Meditation is the art to create music from your heart. Meditation is simply the method to transform noise into harmony, the method to shift your consciousness from the head to the heart. The head is noisy, it is all noise - a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing.
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