Not satisfied with abasing himself before Saddam Hussein's minions on his "fact-finding" trip to Iraq, Master Thespian Sean Penn has spent about forty large and dumped this full-page ad in the NYT, the purpose of which is to acquaint us all with his freshman-year-level political philosophy and his weighty, junior-high-B-student prose. Lee at Right-Thinking from the Left Coast fisks it but good. Me, I don't have the patience for this anymore. I'll just say that in my opinion it's a real striver.
Here's the massive PDF file from Penn's "under construction" website if you want. And Penn, you suck -- you've got a fucking website, can't you get one of your secretaries to post it in HTML? No one cares what font the NYT used.
Posted by Andrea Harris at June 1, 2003 01:00 AMIsn't there some kind of Goodwin`s law for open letters? Anyone who publishes one loses credibility for ever?
Posted by: Ralf Goergens at June 1, 2003 at 08:33 PMThat should have been "forever". I shouldn't drink Grappa and write comments (European booze is evil. I'll go back to Bourbon tomorrow).
Posted by: Ralf Goergens at June 1, 2003 at 08:37 PMIt suddenly struck me why, on the one hand, celebrities do this kind of thing, and on the other, why so many seem to care.
No one really expects celebrities to be very bright about international affairs. So, when they reach their conclusions, there's a certain "but of course" aspect to it. That is, "It's so obvious, even actors/actresses know that XXX is true."
This is, of course, a separate aspect from the idea that, b/c you PLAYED a doctor/lawyer/cancer patient on film, therefore you must know something about what you're talking about.
But it explains not only why Penn saw fit to spend cash on this, but why people often will note that "even Ed Asner/Tim Robbins/Martin Sheen" have protested this.
Posted by: Dean at June 1, 2003 at 10:49 PMMassive? The copy I downloaded ran 46k, which is fairly minimal. (Yes, it probably would have been quicker in HTML, and no, I don't give a two-peso crib-girl screw what font the Times used, but I'm on a 44k dialup and it didn't take me that long to snag a copy.)
Posted by: CGHill at June 1, 2003 at 10:56 PMYeah, but how long did it take Acrobat Reader to load? I admit it doesn't take long on my way-fast home machine, but not everyone has as much RAM as I have. That program is a hog.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 1, 2003 at 11:52 PMIf only the word "Spicoli" wasn't the first thing that came to mind when reading something stupid penned by Penn. What can I say; I'm shallow as the Trinity River at midsummer.
Posted by: David Perron at June 2, 2003 at 01:26 PMWell, I just hit the Save As function and then brought up Acrobat Reader later, when I felt more like perusing the Penned materials.
(I caught hell from some people for a Spicoli reference when I posted something on this item, which proves that Mr Perron is no more lacking in depth than I.)
Posted by: CGHill at June 2, 2003 at 02:42 PM