David Mamet Calls Hollywood’s DEI Initiatives “Garbage” & Says His Kids Are Not Nepo Babies: “They Earned It By Merit”

David Mamet is against the initiatives in Hollywood to create diversity, equity, and inclusion, referred to as DEI.

“DEI is garbage,” the author said at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, as the Los Angeles Times reported. “It’s fascist totalitarianism.”

Mamet has a particular gripe 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.

“I can’t give you a stupid f***ing statue unless you have 7% of this, 8% of that … it’s intrusive,” Mamet said.

RELATED: Academy Clarifies New Oscar Inclusion Standards Initiative For Members

He also said, “The [film industry] has little business improving everybody’s racial understanding as does the fire department.”

Regarding nepotism in Hollywood, Mamet doesn’t think his kids have benefitted from his accomplishments in the industry and rather says they learned from being on set, earning them a spot.

RELATED: New Rules For 2025 Oscars Affect Best Picture, Drive-Ins, Qualifying Metro Areas & More

“They earned it by merit,” Mamet said about his daughter Zosia Mamet, who starred in HBO’s Girls and most recently in Marvel and Sony’s Madame Web. “They haven’t benefited from any type of privilege.”

He continued, “Nobody ever gave my kids a job because of who they were related to.”

Mamet’s latest book is titled Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood. In the playwright’s memoir, he “describes a world gone by, some of our most beloved film stars with their hair down, and how it all got washed away by digital media and the woke brigade.”