During the L.A. Times Festival of Books, David Mamet spoke out against the initiatives in Hollywood to create diversity, equity, and inclusion - referred to as DEI.
ADVERTISEMENTLegendary playwright, filmmaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter David Mamet did not mince his words
The scribe, who is behind The Untouchables, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and the very underrated Wag the Dog, talked about the entertainment industry’s efforts to drive greater diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in its ranks. And he's no fan.
“DEI is garbage,” Mamet told the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
He added the industry’s DEI efforts amounted to “fascist totalitarianism.”
The playwright and director, who has worked in Hollywood since the 1980s, was there to talk about his tell-all memoir "Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood".
He further lambasted the liberal establishment in Hollywood when talking about the inclusion rules the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has implemented for films to be considered in the Oscar Best Picture category.
About the new diversity rules, to help advance the representation of LGBTQ+, women, ethnic minorities and disabled people, Mamet said: “I can’t give you a stupid fucking statue unless you have 7% of this, 8% of that … it’s intrusive.”
In his book, Mamet describes the leaders of these diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as “diversity capos" and “diversity commissars.”
“The (film industry) has little business improving everybody’s racial understanding as does the fire department,” Mamet said, further arguing that his colleagues are better off selling popcorn than trying to improve the representation marginalized groups.
Mamet also rejected that his children, including Zosia Mamet, who starred in HBO’s Girls and most recently in the dire Madame Web, are nepo babies.
According to the prize-winning writer, his children ever got work because of their association with him.
“They haven’t benefited from any type of privilege,” insisted Mamet. “They earned it by merit... Nobody ever gave my kids a job because of who they were related to.”
David Mamet’s memoir "Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood" is set to be published in the fall.
