It’s not really summer without a few celebrity scandals, and the latest revolves around actor Matt Damon and a recent interview in which he appeared to normalize the use of an offensive gay slur. If you’ve only heard bits and pieces of the story, you may be confused, but fear not—below, you’ll find a full explanation of the Damon drama, from his original statement to his more recent walk back.
What did Matt Damon originally say?
In a Sunday Times interview on August 1, Damon launched into a diatribe about “changes in modern masculinity,” noting that he had stopped using what called the “f-slur,” which “was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application.” Damon continued, “I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said, ‘Come on, that’s a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!’ She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, ‘I retire the f-slur!’ I understood.” (I have many thoughts here, but chief among them are respect for Damon’s daughter and confusion at how inclusion in the movie Stuck on You negates the efficacy of a slur.)
What was the response to Damon’s words?
Many were understandably outraged by Damon’s casual use of a word that has brought pain to so many, not to mention the fact that the impact of the word didn’t seem to occur to him until his teenage daughter pointed it out. Still, Twitter—as it so often does—found humor in the situation:
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What did Damon offer as an apology?
Damon did an abrupt double back once the controversy hit, releasing a statement that said, in part, “I have never called anyone ‘f****t’ in my personal life and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind.” Uh...congrats?
Why should we care about any of this?
Well, that’s a tough one. It’s certainly valid to decide that you don’t particularly care which slur a Hollywood millionaire employs (and then humbly recants) this week. Still, the drama over Damon’s interview points to the bigger issue of what we’ll allow—and what, crucially, we won’t—in 2021. Are we really—like, actually—still supposed to believe that a man of 50, who’s worked in Hollywood for decades, didn’t realize that particular slur was offensive and dehumanizing until his teenage daughter pointed it out? I suppose you have to admire the honesty, but also...you really don’t.