Matt Damon Is Going Viral For The Iconic Way He Shut Down A Reporter And Defended His Teacher Mom At A Rally — And Everybody’s Saying The Same Thing

5 hours ago 2

It’s fair to say that Matt Damon is firmly in the zeitgeist at the moment, thanks to his leading role in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, The Odyssey, with the 55-year-old star and his A-list cast mates enjoying several viral moments in recent weeks.

However, the star is also going viral for some other moments from his career, including one video that shows him defending teachers at a 2011 rally.

In the footage, Matt expertly holds his own against a reporter who suggests that teachers would work harder with less job security, with the actor being praised for his incredibly articulate response when put on the spot.

For reference, the moment happened at the Save Our Schools march in Washington, D.C., 15 years ago, with thousands of people uniting to protest the Obama administration's education policies that focused on standardized tests.

Matt was filming Elysium in Vancouver at the time, but flew over especially to attend the march with his mom, who is a teacher.

He delivered an impassioned speech to the crowd during the protest, saying: "I honestly don't know where I'd be today if that was the type of education I had. I sure as hell wouldn't be here. I do know that. I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself; my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity, all come from how I was parented and taught.”

Matt added: "And none of these qualities that I've just mentioned, none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success... None of these qualities that make me who I am can be tested."

Afterward, Matt was approached by a reporter for Reason.tv., who argued that the job security that comes with teachers making tenure could be a bad thing. If you didn't know, tenure is an indefinite academic appointment that provides teachers with a permanent role that will be terminated only under extraordinary circumstances.

Making her case, the reporter compared teaching to acting and said: "There isn't job security, right? There's an incentive to work hard and be a better actor because you want to have a job, so why isn't it like that for teachers?" But Matt was visibly unimpressed with the question, asking in response: "So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard?"

"Well, you have an incentive to work harder," the reporter replied, before Matt interrupted by shaking his head and saying: "I want to be an actor. That's not an incentive, that's the thing."

"See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It's the problem with ed policy right now," Matt continued. "This intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It's like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure, a teacher wants to teach!"

"I mean, why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?" he concluded. At this point, the man filming chimed in, claiming that "10% of teachers are bad," to which Matt's mom asked, "Where did you get that number?"

"I don't know, 10% of people in any profession maybe should think of something else," the cameraperson said. Matt replied: “Well, OK. But maybe you're a shitty cameraman, I don't know."

Every so often, this clip circulates on social media, and The Odyssey’s release appeared to be as good a reason as any for it to make the rounds again, with many left incredibly impressed by how articulate and passionate Matt was in defending teachers.

reason.tv / Via x.com

A tweet sharing the video that has been seen more than four million times since it was posted on Friday is simply captioned: “Matt Damon been king,” and it has since gained thousands of likes, retweets, and responses. One quote tweet that has more than 69k likes reads: “Swore my loyalty to this man many years ago with ‘maybe you're a shitty cameraman, idk.’”

“It will always be awesome that he just had that locked and loaded. Fuck it put Matt Damon in charge of the department of education,” somebody else wrote. Another added: “they really thought they were going to play in his face with these nonsensical takes and mind you he’s harvard educated and his mother is an educator.. 😭”

One more confessed: “Matt Damon and Ben Affleck not being dumb white fucks like they are in their movies is actually the biggest plot twist of my life. What do you mean they’re intelligent? What do you mean they have opinions that I can get behind? I’m like yeah he’s right.”

Others understandably couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Matt and the character he played in his breakthrough movie, Good Will Hunting, which came out in 1997 and stars Matt as Will Hunting, a troubled janitor with a natural gift for complex mathematics and a surprising level of intellect that often catches his peers off guard.

It’s worth noting that the star famously dropped out of Harvard after writing this film with his childhood best friend Ben Affleck. As I’m sure you know, Good Will Hunting ended up being a huge success and catapulted both actors' careers, with Matt and Ben also winning the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the film in 1998.

Responding to the video, one X user mused: “The Will Hunting came straight out of him.” Another quoted an iconic line from the film as they tweeted: “My boys wicked smaht.” Somebody else joked: “They don’t call him Good Will Hunting for nothing.”

While one more concluded: “It’s kinda crazy that you’d ask the dude who wrote Good Will Hunting this stupid ass question and expect him to not have the most educated response while also calling you a dumb asshole lmao.”

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!

Read Entire Article