Matt Damon has been slammed for his new movie 'The Great Wall'.
Matt Damon
Damon plays a soldier in ancient China, who helps to battle against an ancient monster, in the English-language film directed by Zhang Yimou, and the movie has been accused of "whitewashing".
Taiwanese-American actress Constance Wu took to Twitter to insist, "We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world.
"Can we all at least agree that hero-bias & "but it's really hard to finance" are no longer excuses for racism? TRY (sic)."
And 'Fresh Off The Boat' star Constance posted a lengthy statement, which read: "On The Great Wall. Our heroes don't look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela. Your big sister when she stood up for you to those bullies that one time. We don't need salvation. We like our color and our culture and our strengths and our own stories.
"Money is the lamest excuse in the history of being human. So is blaming the Chinese investors. (POC's choices can be based on unconscious bias too) Remember it's not about blaming individuals, which will only lead to soothing their lame "b-but I had good intentions! but...money!" microaggressive excuses (sic)."
She also hit out at "implied racism", explaining: "It's about pointing out the repeatedly implied racist notion that white people are superior to POC and that POC need salvation from our own color via white strength. When you consistently make movies like this, you ARE saying that. YOU ARE. Yes, YOU ARE. YES YOU ARE. Yes, dude, you f**king ARE. Whether you intend to or not. We don't need salvation. We like our color and our culture and our own strengths and our own stories. (If we don't, we should) We don't need you to save us from anything. And we're rrrreally starting to get sick of you telling us, explicitly or implicitly, that we do.
"Think only a huge movie star can sell a movie? That that has NEVER been a total guarantee. Why not TRY to be better? If white actors are forgiven for having a box office failure once in a while, why can't a POC sometimes have one? And how COOL would it be if you were the movie that took the "risk" to make a POC as your hero, and you sold the s**t out of it?! (sic)."
'The Great Wall' is set for release in China in February, 2017, and in the US two months later.
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