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ABC/Heidi Gutman(LOS ANGELES) — Matt Damon has drawn heated criticism for his comments on ABC’s Popcorn in which he said all men accused of sexual harassment and assault shouldn’t be lumped together because “there’s a spectrum of behavior.”
“There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?” he told host Peter Travers Thursday. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”
Alyssa Milano and Damon’s Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver strongly disagreed and chastised Damon for categorizing various forms of sexual misconduct.
“I have been a victim of each component of the sexual assault spectrum of which you speak. They all hurt,” Milano, tweeted Friday. “And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalized, accepted — even welcomed — misogyny.”
Milano addressed Damon in a series of tweets, comparing sexual misconduct to cancer. “There are different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it’s still cancer,” she wrote.
Driver also responded briefly on Twitter and elaborated on her reaction in an interview with The Guardian published on Sunday.
“I felt I desperately needed to say something. I’ve realized that most men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off in their ability to understand. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level,” the British-born actress told the newspaper.
In his interview, Damon said Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken, who recently stepped down following sexual harassment allegations, should not be compared to Harvey Weinstein, who is accused of multiple allegations of sexual harassment, assault and even rape.
“We live in this culture of outrage and injury, and, you know, that we’re going to have to correct enough to kind of go, ‘Wait a minute. None of us came here perfect,'” Damon said.
The Internet was not kind. “Matt Damon is the Lena Dunham of men,” quoth one, comparing him to the Girls star for her defending of one of her friends, who had been accused of sexual assault.
“It’s time we took a hard look back at the decision to put so much time and money into rescuing Matt Damon from Mars,” said another, referencing Damon’s movie The Martian.
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