Project Greenlight Season 4 Episode 7 - Discussion

tl;dr: Effie was a bad fit from the git go, and had a negative influence on the crew.

Much of the drama, of course, is being ramped up through the selective editing of a reality show. But it's pretty obvious that Effie wasn't interested in doing a movie like "Leisure Class" that's effectively about "White Privilege."

Her whole raison d'etre and career trajectory is oriented towards minorities and under-represented groups, which has "colored" (pun intended) her view of quality. She said so herself in the first ep: "Diversity is very important to me. The films that I typically do are about someone who's outside of mainstream. And most times that's women and people that are marginalized."

Recall that among the selection group, she exclusively wanted Leo and Kristen, whom she immediately championed: "I love the fact that they're diverse in and of themselves, being a woman and he's also a people of color."

It was Peter Farrelly who set her off when he tried to be nice, saying that they didn't make the cut. She then gave her whole speech about how important diversity was for the director. Matt Damon pointed out that Leo and Kristen were the only ones to have said they loved the original script like it was, and that just because they were minorities, doesn't mean they were the most qualified: "On the surface they may look like one thing, but they might end up giving us something we don't want."

From the beginning, she has been consistently (although perhaps not always with conscious intent) undermining the production and the director.

Jason even said so during this ep's "confessional" interview: "It feels like Effie just doesn't like the movie we're making on a personal level; and she's trying to make it impossible to do it well."

Effie's constantly snide comments about his background and how much he doesn't appreciate how hard she's working, just reinforces how little she thinks of him: "But in my heart of hearts, I don't think he really cares. That's just my personal feeling. I do feel that's a bit of...it might be...entitlement."

Yes, the scrawny white guy feels entitled to make a picture the way he wants. Just because he not only won the contest by demonstrating talent, but also co-wrote the script, convinced the network to allow him to shoot on film, and even managed to bond with Peter Farrelly (who originally called him "pretentious as fuck.")

A big part of it came down to leadership. As the director, Jason was supposed to be the captain of the production, the leader of the cast and crew, and inspire them with his vision. But in her role as line-producer, Effie did all the main crew hires, so they were beholden to her-- and her negativity influenced their attitudes.

Jason's mistakes were compounded by a certain lack of social and political graces. He had a specific artistic vision, but didn't communicate it in a way that Effie (and many of her hires) cared about or believed in.

In the end, it remains to be seen if he's gotten the coverage he needed to edit together something that meet with his sensibilities.

/r/projectgreenlight Thread Parent