In yet another groan-inducing move from woke actor Sean Penn, who recently became notorious online again because of his comments about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, Penn complained about the Academy Awards and their Oscars, despite having previously won two, while attending the Marrakech Film Festival.
The 64-year-old’s complaints came on Tuesday, December 3. Penn was speaking about, when he sounded off about the supposed disdain The Oscars have for the President-elect Donald Trump biopic, “The Apprentice.” Chain smoking, he declared that the Oscars were “limiting different cultural expressions.”
Funnily enough, Penn, who has twice been an Academy Award winner, declared during his rant that really award shows like the Oscars should be seen not as deciders and indicators of artistic merit, as used to be commonly assumed, but rather ought to be seen as “television shows first” because they try to bring in viewers.
Accusing the movie award show of “cowardice” for supposedly “limiting the imagination,” Penn said, Fox News Digital reports, “The Academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the bigger world of expression, and in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and very limiting of different cultural expressions.”
Continuing, he named random, not particularly known movies that came out, saying that those made him excited for the show. He said, “So I don’t get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards [except for] when a film like ‘The Florida Project,’ or ‘I’m Still Here,’ or, you know, ‘Emilia Perez,’ of the things that are likely to happen this year.”
Still not done, Penn ranted, referencing Ali Abbasi’s controversial “The Apprentice” biopic of Trump, saying, “when something sneaks through, it’s to be celebrated.” He added, “It’s jaw-dropping how afraid this [so-called] business of mavericks is of a great film like that. One with great, great acting. [It’s amazing] that they too can be as afraid as a piddly little Republican congressman.”
Penn, who received a lifetime achievement award, also advocated for “diversity of behavior,” whatever that means, saying, “Around the world [there is] this demand for diversity — but not diversity of behavior and not diversity of opinion or language.” He added, “I would just encourage everybody to be as politically incorrect as their heart desires and to engage diversity and to keep telling those stories, and I’m very proud and happy to be here. Thank you.”
The Amazon Prime description for “The Apprentice,” the Trump biopic that Penn mentioned as a good film that should be cheered, provides, “The Apprentice is a dive into the underbelly of the American empire. It charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.”
Somewhat differently, the Googe description for the Penn-beloved movie provides, “A young Donald Trump, eager to make his name as the hungry second son of a wealthy family in 1970s New York, comes under the spell of cutthroat lawyer Roy Cohn. Cohn sees in Trump the perfect protege: someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.”
