Yahoo Movies Matt Damon upset over The Great Wall whitewashing controversy
Matt Damon made an appearance at New York Comic-Con this week to promote his latest movie, ‘The Great Wall’, where the discussion about its whitewashing inevitably arose.
The film, an epic action-adventure around the mysteries of The Great Wall of China, has been accused of whitewashing the story and elements of history by using Damon’s Caucasian character as the saviour.
“Yeah, it was a f**king bummer,” Damons mused when asked about the backlash towards project.
According to Screen Rant, the ‘Jason Bourne’ actor was very forthcoming about his experience on the film and the hostile reaction to it.
“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 [when considering] 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.”
Regardless of how Damon does portray the role, it is still likely to receive scrutiny. And ‘The Great Wall’ isn’t exactly the first film to come under fire either - this year alone there have been a number of others.
‘Ghost in the Shell’ cast Scarlett Johansson as its lead, where in the anime movie her character is Asian. Similarly, people petitioned to make sure the recently announced live-action ‘Mulan’ from Disney wouldn’t be whitewashed. But it appears the general public don’t have a lot of power over the execs and producers that Hollywood deems worthy to make such bold decisions, who’ll make them the way it suits them financially.
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