In the fourth season premiere of Project Greenlight, Effie Brown, along with Director Peter Farrelly and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, met to decide which filmmakers would be chosen to direct a feature film for the show. Among the finalists considered were a directing team of an Asian American man, Leo Angelos, and a white woman, Kristen Brancaccio. Effie Brown expressed her support of this team, stating that "I would just urge people to think about whoever this Director is, the way that they’re going to treat the character of Harmony, her being a prostitute,” Brown counters. “[She’s] the only black person, being a hooker who gets hit by her white pimp." Damon, feeling frustration that the show had not properly cast more diverse filmmakers for the competition, responded that "when you’re talking about diversity, you do it in the casting of the film, not the casting of the show." Critics of Damon's comments stated that he was "mansplaining" and "whitesplaining" diversity to Effie Brown and accused him of being racially tone deaf.
