*When it comes to explaining how diversity works in Hollywood, leave it to the White men to handle it, like Matt Damon.
His glorious moment arrived during the Sunday night premiere of HBO’s “Project Greenlight,” where he stunned accomplished filmmaker Effie Brown with his delusion about diversity and how it should be handled on the series.
“Project Greenlight,” now in its fourth season, is a Matt and Ben Affleck passion project where they give first time filmmakers the chance to make a movie. In the season premiere, they gather a team of white producers to find a director for a new comedy titled “Not Another Pretty Woman.”
As Jezebel reports, the plot of the film is described as a “girl leaves boy at the altar, boy falls in love with a black prostitute” story. The finalists in the competition were then flown to Los Angeles to meet with the producers to discuss the next steps.
During the interview process, Effie, producer of seventeen feature films, including “Dear White People,” suggests it would be wise to also consider some non-white directors for the project. She points out that having the only black character in the movie be a prostitute, who is slapped by her white pimp, could be viewed as racist and sexist.
Damon very adamantly disagreed, and his response was, as BET reports “a glaring example of how white privilege manifests itself in Hollywood.”
“When we’re talking about diversity you do it in the casting of the film not in the casting of the show,” Damon said. To which a clearly taken aback Brown responds with “Wow. Ok.”
So, by Damon’s logic, diversity simply means casting people of color, not actually giving them power to make the movies themselves. Of course, Black Twitter let him know how we feel about that.
What viewers found most troubling about the moment is Matt’s insistence on silencing Effie by interrupting and talking over her. Check out the scene below.
Matt Damon speaking over the only black person in the room so he can explain diversity to her is SO WHITE it hurts pic.twitter.com/iaQStYZ0ij
— Glen Coco (@MrPooni) September 14, 2015
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