While he’s been shedding pounds and his shirt for the filming of the next installment of his Jason Bourne franchise, Matt Damon has also been pissing people off over something he said on the HBO series Project Greenlight. The man who recently mocked Scott Walker’s proposed wall between the U.S. and Canada raised plenty of eyebrows when he appeared to interrupt African-American film producer Effie Brown in a conversation about diversity in filmmaking. Specifically, Damon told her: “When we’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not in the casting of the show.” Many people took that to mean: we should see the diversity on the screen and not worry about diversity behind the camera.
Later in the episode, Damon explained that he was simply referring to the rules of the series and “what the competition is all about,” but the comment and the way it was stated (or perhaps edited) have been met with outrage and standard Twitter backlash, with people inventing the term “Damonsplaining” as a new take on “Whitesplaining.” According to the Washington Post, even conservative websites and blogs are having a field day with this Bourne Stupidity, cackling maniacally as the “Left Eats Liberal Matt Damon.” Don’t worry, they’re not actually eating him. That would probably be a bit more newsworthy if true.
For more on the Damonsplaining Damonragepocalypse, anchors Tom Storey and Briana Lane weigh in on today’s episode of The Desk.