Effie Brown is a really cool producer. She’s handled countless TV shows, and headed up the excellent Dear White People. She’s also a panellist in Project Greenlight, an HBO reality show created by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The show’s only aim is to make a good movie while documenting the process. But the whole thing has gotten off to a really rocky start, because the basis of said “good movie” is an already problematic script. Not Another Pretty Woman stars just one woman of colour: she’s a sex worker who is hit by her pimp.
Effie—who joins of panel of seven white men—rightly points out that this is a bit of a problem. When discussing which director they’d like to hire to bring the script to life, when Effie suggests that maybe a person of colour would offer the lone black female character some dignity. Matt Damon interrupts almost immediately, explaining to the only woman of colour in the room how diversity actually works. Apparently, it’s about hiring diverse actors (not possible in a film with one one character of colour) not hiring a diverse crew. Right-o Matt. As journalist Kara Brown put it:
“He doesn’t seem to grasp the concept—and stay with me here, because this is a CUH-razy idea—if you hire diverse filmmakers, the movies will probably end up being diverse. You don’t actually have to pick one or the other.”
You can watch the conversation here:
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
For those asking, the clip is from the episode of Project Greenlight that aired on HBO last night. Here’s the cast: pic.twitter.com/cLItjNF3zZ
— Glen Coco (@MrPooni) September 14, 2015
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Image via YouTube