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Dear Will Gluck, Jay Z, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, Quvenzhané Wallis, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx and everyone else who was involved in the making of the Annieremake:
Thank you.
I’ve wanted to write about this movie since I heard it was going to be made. People have told me that a remake isn’t a big deal, and that the movie has been made over a million times. I’ve read and heard comments from people who have a problem with the titular character being portrayed by a black actress.
I’ve also read comments that aren’t even about this film.
If I get to see myself on screen, then I know that I exist.
Well, when I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, “Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!” I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.
And so I hope that my presence on your screens and in the magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. There is no shade to that beauty.
What do all of these quotes have to do with anything, you ask? All of these ladies once believed that they weren’t good enough. That their dreams weren’t valid — like their dreams weren’t even possible. And now these women are the inspiration for the young girls of today.
Geena Davis says “if she can’t see it, she can’t be it.”
If girls can’t see themselves on screen, they’ll feel like their dreams are impossible.
