As the list of Hollywood men accused of sexual assault or harassment continues to grow, many of their colleagues, female and male, have had an appropriate response, speaking out against the misconduct and showing support for the victims.
But not actor Matt Damon, who seems to think that, in contrast, men who don’t sexually assault or harass women should be praised.
Sexual misconduct allegations against famous Hollywood actors and directors have been pouring in since accusations were first leveled by numerous actresses against producer Harvey Weinstein, in a report published by The New York Times.
As the accusations continue to pile up, the natural go-to reaction by celebrities, or anyone for that matter, has been to call the behavior unacceptable or disgusting.
But Damon recently had a strange take on the matter — instead of just condemning the behavior of the men accused, he chose to suggest that there should be more focus on men who haven’t harassed or assaulted women.
“We’re in this watershed moment, and it’s great, but I think one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole (expletive)load of guys — the preponderance of men I’ve worked with — who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected,” Damon told Business Insider.
“If I have to sign a sexual harassment thing, I don’t care, I’ll sign it. I don’t do that, and most of the people I know don’t do that.”
What, is he expecting an award or something for treating women with the respect that they deserve?
Let’s take a different approach — maybe, we, as women, should analyze all of our male-female interactions and then, if they went well, and we don’t feel like we’ve experienced any sort of harassment, we should compliment our male counterparts and thank him for being a decent human being toward us.
Or we should talk to others about how we had a positive encounter with said-male.
Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s because it is.
Damon suggesting that men who don’t harass women should be “talked about” seems to imply that this is some sort of effort on their part that deserves a reward.
What makes matters worse is that this comes on the heels of him saying during an interview with ABC News that that there is a “spectrum of behavior” to consider when it comes to sexual assault.
“There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?” he told ABC News. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”
Maybe using language that minimizes a woman’s sexual assault by classifying it was also not the best go-to response for Damon.
Perhaps he should take a break and talk about something else for awhile because this topic obviously isn’t working for him.
