Here is the full transcript of screenwriter and director Amma Asante’s TEDx Talk presentation: The Power of Defining Yourself at TEDxBrixton conference.
Listen to the MP3 Audio: The power of defining yourself by Amma Asante at TEDxBrixton
TRANSCRIPT:
Could you please pick the odd one out? It’s not difficult, right?
Now, I mean the image you see on the screen represents, some think, a rough idea of what the British and general film-making industry looks like. You see, figures revealed by the Women’s Media Centre in New York show that across a five-year period ending in the year 2012, of the 500 top-grossing movies, only two of those had black women directors attached to them. That’s 0.4%.
And I’m thinking back now to the night before I was about to set foot on the set of my first movie ever to direct. And I can tell you now: I was absolutely terrified. And my fear pivoted around the fact that I knew that I wasn’t what was expected of a director. I didn’t fit the industry model, full stop. And I wondered how I was going to lead my all-male crew, and they were also all white, how I was going to instill confidence in them and get them to believe in me, so that I could end up with a film that I had written on screen. After all, I knew that they had never worked under anyone like me before, you know, my shape, my flavor.
And I realized, essentially, that society had created the very world that I wanted to work in as one that, statistically, did not include me. And that society, by its own boundaries and perceptions, had created me to be somebody that didn’t fit into the category of what filmmakers were generally expected to be.
Essentially, my definition of me didn’t match the definition that society had bestowed upon me. And so, who wins? And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. The question of who defines you: society or yourself?
Now, is society’s opinion of who you are, who you can be, what value you have, what you can achieve in life, is that more powerful an opinion and important an opinion than your own? If you say you are a writer, and you have something valuable to contribute to the literary world, but you know, reviewers and critics, they say, you know, you’re not, you’re not a great writer. Then whose truth wins? And whose truth is most likely to determine your future as a writer?
Well, for me, the answer is really simple. It’s whichever you choose to believe. And I have this idea that since we can all dream a far bigger dream for ourselves than society could ever indicate for any of us, what would happen if we all decided that we were going to actively define ourselves and allow that definition to govern everything, over and above anything that society could define or indicate for any of us? How would that influence our lives?
Now, you know, the question of who defines us comes up in everybody’s life at some point or another. And it doesn’t have to be about race or gender, necessarily. For me, the question embedded itself long ago. I grew up down the road from here, at a time when Brixton was being so negatively defined by society, and also defined in a way that it didn’t authentically see itself, that it practically imploded on itself, in its struggle to be heard. And, with an older brother, at the time, who was still a teenager, I experienced how it felt for some, like they were living in a police state. But yet I also witnessed how Brixton refused to be marginalized, and criminalized, as it rose up during the riots of the 1980’s and rejected this definition of the existence it should have by society’s standards.
Now, you know, defining yourself outside of the realms of society, it’s not easy. And, as a writer and director, it’s such an interesting and fascinating subject to me that it has risen to the fore of every single project I have ever worked on, and probably every single project I will ever do. And I think the reason is because it’s so complex. And I think what’s so hard about it is to recognize when your choices and your direction in life are being influenced by society’s perhaps more restricted ideas of who you should be. You know, when the mirror image of what society is suggesting to you doesn’t reflect the person that you really feel you are. Or even worse, when the untrue image that’s coming back to you does feel real. Because the messages and the influence can be so subtle that it’s just easy to dismiss. You know, this is just the way things are supposed to be. That’s what you tell yourself.
And you think about how many used that argument when it came to the transatlantic slave trade, or against the women who demanded the vote, or even today, when it comes to gay marriage. And think of how many institutions — I can think of them right now — and organizations use outdated, antiquated, biased rules to maintain the status quo. And sometimes an unjust status quo. You know, we have been doing this for X and X amount of years, so we can’t change it now, it’s just — it’s tradition. It’s a word they like to use, “tradition”.
And, you know, for me, I think that it sounds unevolved to not move forward because you think something is tradition. And yet, when society is acting to prevent you from reaching your goals and your dreams, I think that’s precisely the time you have to truly remember who you are. And the reason why I believe that, is because today, none of use emerge from just one single world. We are all a combination of many worlds put together. And sometimes, when you are at the junction of many worlds, society considers you a contradiction.
You know, growing up, as I said, down the road from here, I experienced the common story of constantly being asked: “Where are you from? Where are you from?” And I would say: “Well, actually, I was born here in London.” And then I would be harangued. “No, but where are you really from? You know, what part of London don’t you get?”
And then interestingly, I would go back to Ghana to visit both my grandmothers, with my mother during summer vacation, and I would be told: “Well, you’re not really Ghanaian, are you, because you’re too English.” And it got to the point where, at this junction that I was sitting at, I didn’t know which pathway to go down. Because, if I took one pathway, it would be rejected, if I took another pathway, that would be rejected. And it felt like, in many ways, society was defining me as an outsider.
And as I say, again, and I’ll keep saying it, you know, this doesn’t have to be solely about race or gender. We’re all at the junction of many worlds. It can be concerning race, it can be concerning class, sexuality, so many different things today. And I don’t think — I am wondering, at least, if there is a person in this room who, at least at some point in their life, hasn’t been identified outside of the realms of that which they have felt that they would see themselves, or at some point at least, hasn’t felt like an outsider. And for me, I don’t think it should be about having to pick one pathway over another. I shouldn’t have to pick being British over being Ghanaian, or being Ghanaian over being British. Because ultimately, I am a product of both. Both of those cultures reside inside me. And, you know, it shouldn’t really matter if that’s not normal to society.
For me, it’s not so much about a collision of worlds as it is a combining of worlds. And as I say, it shouldn’t matter, it really shouldn’t matter whether society defines it as normal or not, because as the late Dr. Maya Angelou would say, if we are always trying so hard to be normal, how can we ever know how amazing we can be?
Now, you know, bringing to bear your definition of yourself in society, as I say, I know it can be hard. There are all sorts of things: beauty ideals, gender expectations for both men and women, you know, racial profiling, class prejudice, these are all examples of how we can be thrown off base in terms of knowing and understanding and defining who we know we truly are. I am thinking now about — the guy who wants to stand in his truth when it comes to his sexuality, even though his community or his religion might expect something different of him. Those who find they define themselves as beautiful, but society is telling them that they are not, and I think to myself that at those points exactly when society is telling you you are not who you feel you are, that’s the time, as I say that, you have to understand the power of what it means to define yourself. How it can mean the difference between whether you may be happy or less happy in life, a failure or a success in life, but most importantly, conscious or unconscious in the story of your own life.
I think back now to finding my way originally in the business of film, and being told so often it’s very hard to sell black movies with a black protagonist. You know, there are enough movies today that have defied that definition and shown that to be untrue. But regardless of whether that was just opinion, or whether that was perception, or whether it was truth or not, I realized that if I was going to move forward in the business, I was going to have to try and find a way of working out what the obstacles were and finding a way to negotiate those obstacles.
And what I learned is that when you truly embrace who you are, and all of the worlds that you come from, when you bring those sensibilities to a previously closed off world, you move society forward. Because when we move into other worlds, we touch people, we impact people. And when people change, then society has to as well. And for me, the value of embracing all of the worlds that exist in you and get this, is that those of us who are able to do that have an insight that shows us why colliding worlds on the outside are not a bad thing. Because when worlds meet, progress can follow. You know, the mother who may run the Fortune 500 company, the son of a cleaner who becomes a doctor, or think about the first African-American children to set foot in the all-white schools after segregation was abolished, those are all people that inspire me to do what I do.
And I’m thinking now about the women who do make their way in the male-dominated world of filmmaking. And what we realize about those women is that when they are able to break into that world, they make an impact. The British Film Institute released figures between 2010 and 2012 that show that although women were still underrepresented when it came to independent filmmaking, they represented a significant figure or percentage when it came to successful films. People love their films. And that’s what I mean when I say when we have the courage to move forward into other worlds, we have the impact to change them.
And it takes me back to the story that I started with, stepping onto the set of my first film. And a few weeks before I was about to shoot that movie, a film executive came up to me and said: “Well, you’re not going to step on set with your big high heels on, are you?” As if to say, you know, me coming on set with high heels was really going to be the thing that established me as a woman in a man’s world. And, for the record, I don’t direct in high heels, and I didn’t direct my first film in high heels, except from the last day. I always make that a tradition. But I did celebrate my love for heels in this way. I don’t know how clear that is for everybody, but there is essentially a high heel on the name of my company. And that appeared at the end of the movie and it was the logo for my company. You see, I believe in leaning in to our identity, not leaning back. And high heels are definitely a part of my identity.
But you see, I believe that the part of me that loves high heels and loves being a woman is every bit the part of me that is able to write movies, direct movies, and deliver movies. Just as in the way that the part of me where Africa meets Europe is the thing that gives me my unique yet universal eye. You see, I believe every industry, every business, every society, requires fresh eyes to open new windows on old concepts and unseen worlds, to bring new perspectives to the universal experience.
Now, the journey for me of defining myself is an ongoing experience. I work at it every day. But if you ask me the question today: “Who are you, Amma? Where are you from?” I can tell you this: I am a black British woman. I am proudly born of Ghanaian parents. And I am a screenwriter and a movie director. Now, how will you define you?
Thank you.
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