Effie Brown
Introduction
Effie T. Brown is a film and television producer known for such films as Rocket Science, Real Women Have Curves, Everyday People, Desert Blue, Dear White People, and But I'm a Cheerleader. She is seen in the fourth season of Project Greenlight as a producer on that season's film project The Leisure Class.
Project Greenlight controversy
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 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.
Selected filmography
- Desert Blue (1998), line producer
- But I'm A Cheerleader (1999), line producer
- Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000), line producer
- Stranger Inside (2001), producer
- Real Women Have Curves (2002), producer
- In the Cut (2003), executive producer
- Everyday People (2004), producer
- Rocket Science (2007), producer
- Dear White People (2014), producer