The “Westworld” star slammed Sean Penn via Twitter after Penn voiced his criticisms on modern gender roles. Penn previously said in an interview with The Independent that he is “in the club that believes that men in American culture have become wildly feminized.” Penn continued, “I don’t think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect for women is anything to do with masculinity, or ever did. But I don’t think that [in order] to be fair to women, we should become them…I have these very strong women in my life who do not take masculinity as a sign of oppression toward them. There are a lot of, I think, cowardly genes that lead to people surrendering their jeans and putting on a skirt.” Newton retweeted Variety’s coverage of the interview, commenting, “Dude what are you saying? Like for real? You’re a jibbering fool…you used to be sexy but now you’re just tragic.”
Penn’s observations came when promoting film “Flag Day” with daughter Dylan Penn, whose mother is Penn’s ex-wife Robin Wright. Newton followed up via social media to point out Penn’s parenting choices: “In front of your daughter!? That poor little mite. Thank God her Mum’s so dope.” And Newton pointed to Penn’s presence in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” adding, “Please stop ruining the brilliance of ‘Licorice Pizza’ with this nonsense.” “Flag Day” premiered in competition at 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Penn spoke out about the production process, telling IndieWire, “It’s hard to work within a great bureaucracy or a movie industry that’s as full of shit as great people. As it turns out, that’s my job. Yes, I can rage against the machine, it can be disappointing and heartbreaking as the society is moving in a direction where the kinds of stories you want to tell aren’t embraced or shared broadly. I never wanted to direct something for the small screen, although I’m a great appreciator of the incredible stuff on the small screen. I fell in love with movies. Hal Ashby once said to me: ‘at the end of the day they have their money, we have our movies.’”
— Thandiwe Newton (@ThandiweNewton) January 30, 2022 Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
