Matt Damon Hits Back At Whitewashing Claims Over Monster Flick ‘Great Wall’

There was a minor flutter of controversy a few months ago after the first trailer for Matt Damon star vehicle Great Wall dropped – people were immediately pissed that it was a movie about a white bloke defending China from monsters. Why couldn’t an Asian actor defend China from monsters, the critics asked.

A second trailer for the film dropped yesterday, just before Damon commented on the controversy:
Damon was a little baffled by the response.
Yeah, it was a fucking bummer. I had a few reactions. I think I was surprised, I guess, because it was based on a teaser. It wasn’t even a full trailer, let alone the movie. So, to get those charges levied against you…what bums me out actually is that I read The Atlantic religiously. And there was an article in The Atlantic, [so] I was like really guys? To me whitewashing, I think of Chuck Connors when he played Geronimo…there are far more nuanced versions of it and I do try to be sensitive to that.

He continued:

I really do agree with and try to listen and try to be sensitive to, but ultimately I feel like you are undermining your own credibility when you attack something without seeing it. I think you have to educate yourself about what it is and then make your attack or your argument and then it is easier to listen to from my side.

It’s worth noting that – while whitewashing is a huge issue which holds people of colour back in Hollywood – the Great Wall controversy is a bit of a non-starter, to be quite conest. It’s a Chinese-produced film, directed by legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Blockbuster films are a way that China can flex its soft power in the world.
Zhang Zhou, chief executive of Le Vision Pictures, says that Chinese partnerships in Hollywood blockbusters are the next big thing. “The movie industry has reached the stage of globalisation,” he says. “While we are making movies like Expendables, putting money into co-producing movies with Hollywood studios, those movies are still developed by them; meanwhile, we need to develop movies that allow them to work with us.”

Let’s talk about Hollywood whitewashing. But honing in on Chinese-produced blockbusters which comfortably sit within a programme of spreading a Chinese cultural vision to the world is probably a poor place to start.
Source: Screen Rant.
Photo: Great Wall.

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