Sean Penn was the big “surprise” presenter at the Oscars. He presented the final award, Best Picture, to Birdman. Birdman was directed by his friend Alejandro Iñárritu, who directed Penn in 21 Grams. When Penn opened the envelope, he made a “joke” about Iñárritu being Mexican, saying, “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?” Penn was widely criticized on Oscar night for that “quip,” although Inarritu said that night that he wasn’t offended, that it was just a joke, and that he and Penn are friends. Up until now, Penn hasn’t explained or apologized. But now he’s saying that we’re stupid for being offended. Because of course.
Sean Penn is adamant that he has no reason to apologize for making a green card jibe at the expense of Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu while handing him his Oscar for Birdman. The joke prompted a storm of outrage from critics who branded the comments xenophobic – but Penn has today said he has ‘absolutely no apologies’ and that the only reason anyone could be offended is their own ‘flagrant stupidity’. According to Penn, the jibe was part of his friendship with Iñárritu, with whom he has worked in the past – and even a way to let him know of his victory seconds before everyone else.
Speaking at a promo event in Beverly Hills for one of his own movies, Penn said of the reaction to the joke: ‘I’m always surprised by flagrant stupidity. I keep having more hope.’
He later added: ‘I have absolutely no apologies. In fact, I have a big f—k you for every… anybody who is so stupid not to have gotten the irony when you’ve got a country that is so xenophobic. If they had their way, you wouldn’t have great filmmakers like Alejandro working in this country. Thank god we do.’
Penn also clarified that the order of his comments were intentional.
‘There’s a little inside humor with he and I where I know, and wanted to know, that he would be the first person in that room to know that his film won,’ he said.
I’m willing to make the journey and say that Penn’s comment would have been fine if it was simply an inside joke between two friends, friends that “get” each other. But for that to be the announcement of Best Picture, to be said in a huge public forum, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be all “seriously, Sean Penn is kind of racist jerk.” And I’m surprised by Penn’s “flagrant stupidity” in not knowing which jokes will be more well-received in private conversation rather than a public forum.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
You are known by the company you keep, Charlize.
When people show you who they are, listen.
Right? Run girl. Run away fast.
Charlize is friends with Chelsea Handler, who is friends with Sandra Bullock, who was married to Jessie James, so Sean Penn fits right in.
Right on – Charlize is BFF with known racist Charlize, Sandra who was married to a nazi and is now is a relationship with women beater Sean.
Charlize is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses in Hollywood but I don’t like her personality nor her group of friends.
As seine above correctly said – you are the company you keep.
Which is why I stopped watching and supporting Charlize, Reese, Jen Aniston and Sandra. I will never support not like people who are friends with racists.
I especially judge Charlize and Sandra who have adopted black children and yet hangs out with racists.
You people are reaching. Linking Charlize to Jesse James? She probably never even met him. I don’t think Sandra Bullock is a racist. And Chelsea Handler is not a racist. Sean Penn is the furthest thing from one. He is a former wife beater though. So we can judge her and Robin Wright for being with someone who beat Madonna 30 years ago. That will always make Sean Penn creepy to me.
You are the company you keep is not accurate. My personality is completely opposite from some of my best friends.
Good for Sean for not backtracking with a phony apology out of fear of the bullying PC brigade though. He was being ironic people. If anything he was poking fun at xenophobia.
@Tara: only thing I am going to comment on is that there is no doubt that Chelsea is a racist. She says vile racist jokes and even uses those racist slurs about children. Have you ever seen her with people of different ethnicity? Only one she ever was with is 50 cent and she uses the famous line of saying I sleep with black people so I am not a racist.
That’s like saying I am not a male chauvinist because I sleep with women.
Tara, I’m not sure where you’ve been, but Maya is right. Handler is an infamous racist. She is infamous for her racism. She calls black children and people monkeys and mocks adopted black and Asian children. She is racist alright, she is infamous for it. Read up on her. She is one of the most well-known and unashamed racists in Hollywood.
Ok but that’s a ridiculous analogy. Sure you have a ‘completely opposite personality’ from your best friends but this isn’t about ‘oh I like to stay in and read and she likes to go out and party’ or whatever. It’s about knowing that someone has extremely racist views and vocalises them loudly and still remaining friends. That’s not about personality, that’s about being totally comfortable associating and hanging out with someone who is a known racist and probably spouts those views off to you too.
People don’t get it. Charlize, as has been said…is a big a-hole too.
Also Sean Penn has raised children that call black people the n-word when angry – wonder where that comes from? I always thought his hooking up with Charlize was the easy way he could ‘prove,’ he wasn’t a racist jackhole that had taught his dumb young son to say the n-word, without him having to actually do the work and adopt a child that happened to be black.
i’m happy to say that i may be stupid but at least i smell great.
ETA: wait. misread the title.
Lol.
i agree. if you make those jokes between friends and you both like them its fine. lots of guys show their friendship by verbally abusing each other.
to do it on one of the biggest stagest in the world is dumb. every inside joke would fall flat.
Absolutely, I agree with this. There is one thing to feel so comfortable with a person that you can make those sort of off-colored jokes, but, yes, that intimacy is something that should stay intimate and private. I can’t believe Penn didn’t realize that the Oscars was not the venue to knock off a racist crack – in front of millions of people who are seeing this man for the first time.
Whether he meant it or not, he undermined that guy’s win, those comments are unacceptable, and i wouldn’t invite him to any more ceremonies.
Who asked this son of a bitch to present the Best Picture Oscar?
Love it!
Everyone knows Penn is a humourless jerk, that’s not news. The secret about Sean Penn that no one in Hollywood seems to want to admit (about the great arTIST) is that he’s not very bright. He’s really not. He thinks he’s brilliant. I have no doubt he thought it was a harmless joke between pals. Maybe it could have been. However he has zero comedic timing or ability. He’s hopeless. I’ve already given him too much of my time today with one comment.
What an idiot. If it’s an inside joke, then maybe you shouldn’t be sharing it on a national stage?
Exactly.
i think the joke was tacky and out of place and wrong and all that stuff, and he’s a jerk and anyone who hasnt figured this out by now needs to wake up (talking to you charlize, grab your kid and run, girl) but I don’t really think he’s a racist and I don’t think he meant to insult Alejandro.
Agree. He’s stated that there was no intent & the person he referring to accepts that. He’s probably an idiot not a racist.
Yet Penn’s soon dropped the n word to a black photographer without hesitation 😯
Micro aggressions, over time, take their toll on us minorities.
Do you know how many white people have “complimented” me on my vocabulary over the years or the number of times people have asked me what part of Mexico my family is from?
Let’s ignore the fact that I’m a sixth generation American, that English was my first language, or that most Americans assume Mexicans are here illegally, his joke should have been kept private.
The people who are upset have probably heard these “jokes” so many times in their lives that they’re simply tired. Racist acts aren’t always blatantly obvious, the only flagrant stupidity I see are the words that come out of Penn’s mouth.
I wasnt reffering to any incident other than the one in this post, since I don’t really follow him in general. All I meant was that I don’t think this joke he made at the Oscars makes him racist. I can’t speak to other racist things he has said or done in the past, like the thing with that photographer. Just to be clear.
Well, Penn may not be racist to some people’s eyes, but he certainly has his biases and prejudices. Nice topic to make a joke about for this man’s debut to the world.
This. People nowadays are starting to call people out on racism and any other form of discrimination so easily.
I gotta say, though, I don’t mind Sean’s response. I’d rather have someone call us stupid and say he won’t apologize at all than receiving a half-assed non-apology. At least he’s not trying to fool anyone that he’s nice.
I agree Catalina. WHile on many occasions I think he’s been a jerk and I don’t really like him as a person, I don’t believe he is racist at all. I thought it was much ado by the uber politically correct who really just love to point and criticize ……yawn over all that. He didn’t call the man a slur, or a rude name or anything else. He made a joke about a CARD.
He made a joke — an illadvised one on the most public of all stages when they whole world is watching and just plain opens you up to criticism no matter what you do. I wouldn’t have done it, but I get the idea of humor behind a microphone. (Do nothing and read from the cards and you are boring and predictable and devoid of personality. Insert some of yourself into it, and watch the claws come out.)
To the uber politcally correct: Sean Penn doesn’t care what you think. He thinks you are pretentious and not worth his time to respond to. And I find that hilarious because the uber politically correct whistle blowers are so damn self important thinking somehow they have been anointed as the judge and jury of all us. And he just told you that you aren’t important at all and your self appointed role is (raspberry sound here).
I can’t stand Sean Penn, but this might be the one time in life where I think he’s getting undeserved crap. If he is friends with him and it didn’t offend the guy he was talking to, I think people need to let it go. He was obviously joking. Yes poor form but not racist. I think calling people stupid for not seeing how brilliantly funny he is, is more offensive. He should have just let it die instead of explaining and offending more people.
The thing is though that in cases like this intent doesn’t really matter. I’m sure Penn doesn’t consider himself racist and maybe many others don’t either but the comment itself was racist, and it was made on a huge international stage with no context. It doesn’t matter if he was joking, it matters how it was seen and how it came across, and that was racist.
there is kind of a blind item maybe about him on a writers blog. the favourite guesses are Sean Penn as the actor and Andrew Upton. if its true Cate Blanchett made the right choice 🙂
http://www.dougrichardson.com/blog/pen-mightier-award/
Powerful wealthy white man who’s had a million and one chances says we are stupid we didn’t get his joke.
Hahhahahahaha ok Sean it was hilarious. Thanks for enlightening me. I’m no longer offended. But apparently I’m stupid. Ok then.
Sean Penn is flagrantly stupid for not understanding that a racial joke about his friend, even if he wasn’t offended by it, would be poorly received in a public setting and shouldn’t be said.
If he had asked Charlize who gave her, a Green Card, would it be getting the same reaction.
More than a quarter of the room was filled with Green Card holders.
It was just a Joke. Everyone is so hyper sensitive about everything these days. We are going to be a generation of people who are scared to say anything without everyone getting worked up over it.
Relax people!!!!!
100% agree with you
I agree, too. While I think Sean Penn is a jerk, I can’t hate on him because of that joke. I’m actually really surprised that it’s gotten this much attention. It was obviously a joke between friends and seemed like a genuine moment in a show full of flat, obviously staged bits and routines.
Ah yes, the classic “You’re stupid!” retort. If this continues, he’ll next argue that he’s rubber and we’re glue.
Ha! Yes, that’s the level we’re on now.
Everyone is being hyper-sensitive. It’s obviously tongue-in-cheek. It’s not racist at all. However, it is racist to assume a joke about green cards is racist. It’s just funny kind of like “who let you in here?” Like what you’d say to someone you love as a joke. It’s a joke about green cards and immigration, not race. It’s nothing that hasn’t been said on tv or among friends. It being said in public shouldn’t automatically correlate to racism.
But don’t you think it’s sort of an old, not funny joke? I’m not saying it was the end of the world, and I certainly can’t speak for Hispanics, but is that really funny? In a world where we have parents sending their children alone across borders where a lot of them are dying before they even get here, it seems sort of tasteless to me. Tone-deaf or something.
Humor is extremely subjective, evidenced by the fact many people chose to be offended by a tongue-in-cheek joke. So I can’t say whether it’s truly funny, but whatever it was, it wasn’t racist. It was a joke about immigration which has to do with eligibility to claim American citizenship, which is not a racial issue. The issue surrounding immigration is not racial, it’s just a legality of going through the motions to immigrate. I was born in America and have since immigrated to Australia, I didn’t feel that the thousands of dollars and hundreds of pages of paperwork was a matter of my race. It was purely a process I had to undergo to become a resident of a country of which I was not born in. And if someone made a joke to me like “who let you in you little ruffian?” Or whatever I’d personally think it was funny, not racist. The joke is directed at his character, not race.
Doe anyone remember a few years back when Chris Rock hosted and made a Jude Law joke? Something about him being in a lot of movies that year or something silly like that.
Sean Penn came on to present with his cold dead eyes, “Jude Law is one of our finest actors of all time” and killed the buzz in the room.
So please shut it Sean. Gives it cannot take it. Typical.
Great point!
Ugh, I forgot about that, it was so awkward and unnecessary! But we’re stupid for thinking that his joke was insensitive, when he got bent out of shape over Rock saying Jude Law did a lot of movies that year.
I forgot how funny that was! He was SO humorless!
It’s difficult to believe that this guy makes a joke because he is so incredibly humorless. I think he’s a great actor but what a freaking bore he must be in real life.
I forgot about that. Yeah, that was ridiculous and strange.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”
as Martin Luther King rightly said.
A couple of posters said that people are being “hyper-sensitive” over this-the fact of the matter is, a racist “joke” made on an international platform about an individual who is winning a prestigious award.It is offensive. It was that f8ckface’s way of Kanye-ing another director’s moment. God, SP is such an egotistical, arrogant, offensive jerk. If he ever wins another award, would it be okay if someone announces it with an “inside” joke..like “Aw, who let this woman beater win?!!”
Thank you! The fact that there are people coming here to defend the human pile of garbage that is Sean Penn, just astounds me.
I can’t even look at Sean Penn, but he was joking and showing off his close friendship with the guy, and he should have addressed it as such afterwards, not call people stupid. Yet, if someone else dared to make an immigration-type joke, he’d want to punch them in the nose.
I don’t care for Sean Penn but I don’t think its fair to always bring up what his son said as a sign that Sean is racist.
His son was a teenager.
I think my mother is a wonderful person- and she is sure not to blame for every stupid thing I said as a teenager.
Sean’s work in Haiti and other places lend to support he is not a racist so his son’s comment is on his son, not him.
@Jayne. I know, how does what his son said become his fault. In that case shouldn’t we call Robin a racist too? And the green card thing is a joke, how in the world is it racist? Is it because of the words “green card”? I didn’t realize there was a stigma attached to a card which gives you legal permission to work in a country. Would it gave been better if he had said “visa”? Get a grip people. BTW I am pretty sensitive to jokes about immigrants, my parents have lived here since 1968 and still have their green card. Neither felt the need to go for citizenship. Their choice.
Mr. Penn gets a few (very few) points from me for the use of two adjectives together rhat you don’t normally hear together.
In the spirit of that, he is flagrantly unable to feel out the vibe of a room before opening his gob, and equally flagrantly a pain in my ass,
The comment was meant to be ironic. I’m glad he wasn’t bullied by the perpetually offended into giving a b.s. apology.
Most inside jokes fall flat for everyone but the two people who are joking around. He has to see that otherwise he’s the one being “flagrantly stupid”. Just admit that you looked like a tacky jerk. But he will never admit any wrong doing unless a judge tells him otherwise.
I don’t know about you folks, but I find nothing funnier than other people’s inside jokes.
I’m probably in the minority here, but I never ‘got’ Sean Penn. I’ve always found him to be almost unwatchable in movies, and its amazing to me that he’s an Oscar winner. Mystic River still makes me angry to think that I wasted 2 hours of my life on it.
Time and place. Even entitled people should know that there are inappropriate times and places to say something that should be just between the people involved and not said in front of everybody.
Isn’t the inside joke that Sean Penn’s production company is the company who gave him his first green card to work in the US on 21 Grams? So he was referring to himself when he said who the hell gave this guy his green card? It didn’t come off well at all during the ceremony, but I get that it was a joke and not meant in a harmful way.
so he was in a way praising himself and make that moment about him for being the first one that gave Inarritu a chance? Then is even more repugnant.
It wasn’t even an innapropriate joke for the setting – it was a SATIRICAL joke people about some of the types of people who control Hollywood – ie the old white rich guy, feeling het up because some damned Mexican is getting all the awards!!
Penn is an arsehole but not in this case.
I agree 100%
Okay, I’m probably going to get killed for saying this….(and full disclosure, I can’t stand Sean Penn),
but I don’t think Sean Penn is xenophobic…and I’m sure he thought he was being delightfully funny! What Sean Penn is, is an ignorant, stupid, egotistical, fool! And when a person is a stupid, idiot and says something foolish (especially in such a public forum), he should apologise! But he wont, because he is Sean Penn and he thinks he is the smartest guy in the room!
Many times, when I see stories of someone being racist, I honestly don’t think its rascism, (of course, sometimes it is) in the way I take it to mean, that they hate the people of another race…I think some people are just stupid, I think lots of people are stupid, as a matter of fact..
I’m offended by Sean Penn’s flagrant asshattery.
Please! In SP’s eyes, an inside joke at a public forum is fine because only he and his peers exist. The rest of us are faceless nobodies.
Why should one care about a woman beater’s opinion?
I agree with Sean Penn…
My opinion on Charlize Theron lowers every time Sean Penn opens his mouth (my opinion on Sean Penn can’t get any lower).
I wasn’t offended by Sean Penn’s joke at the Oscars because I knew it was probably a joke between two friends. But I get why some people might be. Why can’t he just explain himself nicely and apologize to the people who might have been offended? He is such a dried up old tart
I wasn’t offended by it.
Aww how sweet. I think he’s flagrantly stupid every time he opens his mouth
Have we heard from Alejandro Iñárritu on this? Hearing his take on this would clear it up, if it really was a friendly joke or not.
I have to say, it is refreshing that somebody is not ready to issue million sincere apologies for a comment/joke, which was evidently not racist
some people just get offended for the sake of it
It is flagrantly stupid to make a racist joke like that in national tv. But he knew it and he loves this attention and loves being hated, that what’s feeds his twisted ego. He probably had this non apology in his mind while he was making the joke too. He’s one of the most calculating famewhores in hollywood and his tactic is make people believe he’s a private and shy artsy actor, but actually he’s always showing himself where the paps are waiting for celebs and always making polemic statements.