If you need any more proof of how out of touch Hollywood liberals are, I’ve got a story for you.
Actor Matt Damon has a new film out called “Stillwater,” in which he portrays an oil rig worker whose daughter gets caught up in a European murder case, which is loosely based on the Amanda Knox story.
Damon’s character is also a Trump supporter.
To understand the role he was going to play, Damon spent weeks in Oklahoma, spending time with, as Reuters put it, “the so-called roughnecks in the Republican state” to “grasp his character’s mindset.”
“Being invited into their homes, into a backyard barbecue, a guitar comes out and they start singing church songs. It’s a very specific place … and very different to where I grew up,” Damon said at a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival. “These guys don’t apologize for who they are.”
Umm, why should they?
“They’re in the oil business, of course he voted for Trump,” Damon said.
Wow, stereotyping much?
“These people were wonderful to us, they really helped us. It was eye-opening for me,” he added.
Eye-opening? Did Matt Damon finally realize that red-state conservatives aren’t fascists? That Trump voters aren’t evil, but good, decent people?
Matt Damon’s epiphany isn’t all that surprising. Liberals living in their political bubbles genuinely have no idea what real conservatives are like. Conservatives are stereotyped as hateful, evil bigots, and liberals have come to believe it. Why? Because it’s easier for them to believe people who disagree with them aren’t simply wrong but evil because then you don’t have to defend your views.
Perhaps Matt Damon learned more from this experience than just what was needed to get into character. I can’t say I’m confident he’ll be more empathetic towards conservatives, but I’d like to believe maybe he will. In the end, the only way to end the bitter divisiveness in this country is for people to talk to each other, to recognize we’re all human beings and no one is necessarily evil simply because of how they vote.
But let’s not jump the gun here. While Matt Damon may have found his experience among Oklahoma Trump supporters eye-opening, the film got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. So, I’m not convinced that the movie presents conservatives in a positive light. Case in point: Variety reported that “one of the biggest laughs at the movie’s Thursday night premiere came when Damon’s character is asked by a French woman if he voted for Donald Trump. He did not, he responds, but only because a prior felony kept him from voting at all.”
Related: Anti-School Choice Activist (and Hypocrite) Matt Damon Sends His Kids to Private School
Funny, right?
Look, I know plenty of liberal people, and most are nowhere near as radical as the Democrats in Washington, D.C., who are trying to impose their radical agenda on the rest of us. But many of them still believe that Republicans are evil and refuse even to be associated with them—as I noted in a recent column. But conservatives are overwhelmingly branded as bad people in the media, which makes it possible for Matt Damon to experience shell shock when he finds out that conservatives are warm, friendly people.
