The movie Sean Penn hated so much he wrote a letter about it: “A sincere fuck you”
Sean Penn seems like a guy who takes things pretty seriously. Whether it’s being allowed to smoke indoors, meeting foreign leaders or starring in Paul Thomas Anderson films, he does not give the impression that he’d take too kindly to a bit of light piss taking, and indeed that has proved to be the case repeatedly over the years.
This month, he managed to survive sitting through a Golden Globes ceremony puffing away while host Nikki Glaser made a few digs at him, including one about him looking like a sexy leather handbag, but he definitely has a previous when it comes to not seeing the funny side, most famously thanks to the South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
Penn found fame in the 1980s as a young actor, and in the decade following, he moved into political activism in a big way, far more immersively than pretty much any other Hollywood star. Over the years, he has got close to foreign leaders, including the Cuban president and the then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, while calling for any journalist who described the latter as a dictator to be jailed.
He has visited countries like Ukraine during the current Russian invasion, Pakistan to help distribute aid after flooding and Mexico in order to interview the notorious drug lord El Chapo, in addition to regularly appearing on US TV in the 2000s in order to criticise his own then-President George W Bush as he went to war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
And it was that which sparked the row between Penn and the South Park supremos, who had featured Penn in their astounding puppet comedy movie Team America in 2004. Parker and Stone had made a marionette of Penn describing Iraq before the US invasion under Saddam Hussein as having ‘rainbow skies’ and ‘rivers made of chocolate’, which it is fair to say did not go down well with the diminutive actor. Not well at all.
He fired off a public letter to the pair, which started off reasonably friendly, stating, “I remember a cordial hello when you guys were beginning to be famous guys around Hollywood at some party. I remember several times getting a few giggles out of your humour. I remember not being bothered as you traded on my name among others to appear witty, above it all, and likeable to your crowd. I never mind being of service, in satire and silliness.”
But then things took a turn toward the rather less amicable, with Penn seething with anger at being so unceremoniously skewered in a movie that had to be given the highest age certificate in the States due to a three-minute puppet sex scene.
He added, ”I do mind when anybody who doesn’t have a child, doesn’t have a child at war, or isn’t or won’t be in harm’s way themselves, is encouraging that there’s ‘no shame in not voting’… It’s all well to joke about me or whomever you choose. Not so well, to encourage irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world… All best, and a sincere fuck you.”
Penn did end the missive on something of a more conciliatory note, though, by inviting Stone and Parker to tour war-torn Fallujah and Baghdad with him, which is presumably not an offer they took up. Meanwhile, after his work on One Battle After Another last year, Penn is expected to be in the running at the Oscars come March, although he lost out on the Golden Globe to Stellan Skarsgård.
