A crime against liberalism: Matt Damon disagrees with black filmmaker about diversity

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Allahpundit

September 15, 2015

 

The left’s been wetting its pants over this for the past 24 hours so we can’t be more than a day away from a groveling Damon apology. Let’s get you up to speed so that you can enjoy the blue-on-blue while it lasts. CSM has the background on what they’re chattering about in the clip. Damon and his team are auditioning directors for a movie they’re making as part of their “Project Greenlight” show that features a scene of a black prostitute being slapped by her white pimp. Effie Brown, one of the judges on the show, wants the director to be a minority or a woman (or a team of the two) because she worries that someone who can’t relate to the black character will turn the scene into a cheap bit of exploitative stereotyping. That’s a valid concern, says Damon, but diversity in filmmaking should be about what happens in front of the camera, not behind it. Brown is bowled over. Watch to the end and you’ll find Damon reiterating the point in an interview later: If you let diversity concerns guide your choice of director, he says, “It seems like you would undermine what the competition is supposed to be about, which is about giving somebody this job based entirely on merit.”

 

(Snip)

 

Anyway. What’s truly interesting about this clip isn’t the squabbling between Damon and Brown or even Damon’s bizarre unawareness that he’d be burned at the stake for it online (why didn’t they just cut this scene from the show?) but the fact that it’s yet another example of the left coming hard after a leftist celebrity to enforce ideological conformity. All the best SJW stake-burnings nowadays involve liberal celebrities as the targets — Joss Whedon, Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Damon, and on and on. This is, I think, a logical step towards making grievance culture fully dominant: It’s hard to challenge righties for mocking lefty concerns when some prominent liberals seem not to be taking those concerns very seriously either. Better to spend your time clubbing them into submission so that the partisan lines around this subject are nice and clear. Expect that Damon apology tomorrow.

 

Exit question via John Sexton: Exactly what sort of approach to diversity is Damon suggesting here?

 

John Sexton ‏@verumserum

 

What Matt Damon is saying: Merit where it counts and diversity where it shows.

 

2:17 PM - 15 Sep 2015

 

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Trigger Word Micro Aggression Warning

 

 

[Valin]

On A Semi-Related Note

This Is Sexist




This is a blatant example of Patriarchy

 

 

 

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