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And Janeane Garofalo will sue for not being funny

24 comments on And Janeane Garofalo will sue for not being funny

And Janeane Garofalo will sue for not being funny
: The BBC reports, you decide:

Actor Sean Penn has been given the green light to sue producer Steve Bing for allegedly dropping him from a movie because of his anti-war stance….

He filed the lawsuit in February after accusing Bing of “borrowing a page from the dark era of Hollywood blacklisting”.

But Bing has hit back, saying Penn had stepped over the line by being photographed in Iraq standing in front of pictures of Saddam Hussein as the US prepared to go to war.

The producer said he does not owe Penn “one cent” and that the actor’s anti-war talk was not protected by state labour laws guaranteeing free speech.

“Penn crossed over a bright line into unprotected speech when he publicly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Government” in a British newspaper article, the lawsuit said.

The motion also accuses Penn of violating “any standard of decency by posing with portraits of Saddam Hussein and meeting with Hussein’s henchman (former Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz” during his visit to Iraq last December.

By any standard of intelligence, Penn’s an idiot.

24 responses to “And Janeane Garofalo will sue for not being funny”

  1. Donna Doyle Avatar
    Donna Doyle

    The Hollyweird crew never ceases to amaze me. They have the right to speak freely, just as we all do, but don’t want to take personal responsibility for the outcome of their own actions.
    Charlie Daniels took aim at them back in February in an Open Letter To The Hollywood Bunch.

  2. c monks Avatar
    c monks

    The constant criticism leveled towards anti-war celebrities is getting more and more boring. It’s high school and the geeks have finally got back against the popular kids. Yippee. End of story. Let’s move on.

  3. frank Avatar
    frank

    He can always find work as a human shield.

  4. Mike G Avatar
    Mike G

    The sad fact is this Bing guy will probably lose more work for saying it was immoral to pose next to Saddam than Penn ever will. The same way Cliff Robertson was semi-blacklisted for reporting that David Begelman had used his name to forge checks, but Begelman was forgiven.

  5. Sean P Avatar
    Sean P

    It would be one thing if Bing had said he wasn’t hiring Penn because his anti-war position had diminished his marketability as an actor. That would have been a perfectly acceptable economic decision on Bing’s part.
    But it sounds like Bing is explicitely saying he fired Penn because of his political beliefs. That may not be censorship, but it IS wrong. I detest Penn’s politics and his arrogance(railing about the wickedness of the American government while ignoring people like Iranian blogger Sina Motabilli, who knows what REAL repression looks like), but I wouldn’t want to live in a country where I could be fired for my political beliefs. I’m no expert on California Labor Law, but I doubt this is permitted — and it shouldn’t be.

  6. Stephen Avatar
    Stephen

    “It would be one thing if Bing had said he wasn’t hiring Penn because his anti-war position had diminished his marketability as an actor. That would have been a perfectly acceptable economic decision on Bing’s part.”
    There’s no question that in the broad context, Penn took actions that, plausibly, diminished the value he had already sold to Bing, but had not yet delivered. Bing may have meant that and just mis-spoken…or, being “Hollywood” himself, may be something of an idiot as well.
    The center of it all is can a person, or persons representing a private business, make private decisions regarding association–for any reason–subject only to issues of contract. If they can’t, whither privacy?

  7. jaed Avatar
    jaed

    I wouldn’t want to live in a country where I could be fired for my political beliefs. I’m no expert on California Labor Law, but I doubt this is permitted
    I’m not an expert on labor law either, but last I checked, political belief wasn’t a forbidden ground. (There actually aren’t that many, and a criterion that is not explicitly forbidden is legally permitted.) It may shock you to learn that someone can refuse to hire a person because he or she is – just for example – a Nazi, a libertarian, a cultural conservative, a pacifist, or a KKK member – but the results if that weren’t so strike me as stranger and less defensible.

  8. Balbulican Avatar
    Balbulican

    Penn’s an idiot? Good grief.
    You guys live in a country where your head of state told you that he was invading another country because their weapons of mass destruction posed a urgent threat to your national security, and that your intelligence community had firm and conclusive evidence of their existence. Gosh, all that evidence hasn’t turned up anything yet, much of it appears to have been a fraud, and curiously, not a single Iraqi has come forward to curry the favour of the new occupiers by leading them to the stash.
    No problem. We have a marvellous Orwellian rewrite of the last six months, and presto…it was never about weapons of mass destruction anyway.
    And PENN is an idiot?

  9. enloop Avatar
    enloop

    >>…it was never about weapons of mass destruction anyway.
    You just now figuring that out?
    The war was about removing removing a threat to the spread of democracy and altering the field of play in the Middle East.

  10. Jay Avatar
    Jay

    I don’t find Bing’s statement very convincing.
    Standing in front of pictures of Saddam Hussein? It would be impossible to visit pre-invasion Iraq without spending a great deal of time standing in front of pictures of Saddam Hussein, as his face was plastered over every available surface in the country.

  11. Maryam Avatar
    Maryam

    Hello..anyway he acted wonderfuly in “I am Sam”and..everyone makes mistake..though the mistakes are different..

  12. Pyecraft Avatar
    Pyecraft

    Actors are so funny.
    Their everyday words and actions are written and instructed by others. Having whored their way in front of the cameras to begin with, and morphed their own character to stay there, why do so many of them expect the public to accept their opinions as genuine? An actors’ personna is his sole asset and Penn, by actually trying to speak sans script, has simply soiled his marketability.
    A strong case for legalizing suicide if ever there was one.

  13. Jim Treacher Avatar
    Jim Treacher

    Mr. Hand finally gets his revenge from beyond the grave.

  14. Sean P Avatar
    Sean P

    Jaed:
    Of course you can refuse to hire somebody because of their political beliefs. I have no problem with that. This whole Bing/ Penn dispute involves somebody who was already hired — and employees have always had less leeway in firing somebody than for refusing to hire him or her. In fact, its not even clear, under the Americans With Disabilities Act, whether you can fire a drug addict, as long as they are in treatment — and I am NOT making that up, although I wish I was.

  15. John Irving Avatar
    John Irving

    Yes, balbulican, thats why the operation was titled Find WMD. . oh wait, it was titled Iraqi Freedom wasn’t it?
    Look, we don’t expect you to admit you were wrong, balbuli, you or Garafolo. But the incredible contortions you and your fellow far-leftists have to twist into to justify your positions start becoming painful to watch. I mean, don’t you even notice the logical disconnect between “give inspectors more time, 12 years isnt enough” and “where’s the WMD’s, we’ve been victorious there a month already?”

  16. Balbulican Avatar
    Balbulican

    “Far leftists”, John? Little moi? No, not really. Not much range in the permissible political spectrum where you come from, I suppose.
    I guess I just thought it a little weird that your Mr. Powell claimed to have “undeniable and specific” evidence of the existence and locations of caches of and facilities for the production of of WMD. He wouldn’t share it with the UN (or at least, not the stuff that didn’t turn out to be a fraud)…but maybe he could share that mountain of evidence with your guys that are searching now? Might speed things up a bit, and cut down on all these embarassing “smoking gun” press releases.
    Sorry you find my contortions painful…yours are pretty darned funny.

  17. John Irving Avatar
    John Irving

    Sorry, balbuli, havent had to contort once. I come by my convictions honestly. Glad you find it amusing, but since my point of view seems to be carrying the day, I guess your humor is of the gallows variety. . .
    There’s actually quite a range of political diversity where I am from, balbuli. I use “far-leftist” to differentiate you from the moderate left who supported Operation Iraqi Freedom, rather those that supported TotalFinaElf’s beneficiaries’ attempts to continue to gouge the Iraqi people and keep them under a dictator. Name yourself whatever you like, although the best label for your political views at this point would be “Left-Behind.”
    But that really doesn’t matter, just as it doesnt matter what you claim about WMD’s in Iraq. Because truth to tell, I don’t believe even after we complete our investigations and uncover the named materials, all in due time, that you will admit you are wrong. I believe that you will avoid the topic, claim some sort of conspiracy, or otherwise emulate Ms. Garafolo’s behavior, just as you ignored the logical contradiction I pointed out in your viewpoint.

  18. Balbulican Avatar
    Balbulican

    Well, I’m glad we both come by our convictions honestly. As for yours “carrying the day”… ummm…whatever you say. I’m sure in your household they do.
    Thanks for the clarification. If your definition of “far left” is “opposed the invasion”, then yeah, I guess I am a far leftist. Fond of Alice in Wonderland, are you? A big fan of Humpty Dumpty?
    I “claim” nothing about WMDs…just wondered why Mr. Powell knew where they all were before the invasion and can’t find them now…wondered why he refused to provide hard evidence to the weapons inspectors…wondered why no Iraqis have come forth to lead your folks to the cache…wondered why no-one in your camp seems very angry about having been lied to by your government. But it’s all very interesting.

  19. Pyecraft Avatar
    Pyecraft

    But John, ignoring logic is a province of the Leftoutside’s. What then? Are the megatonnes of other indictable evidence found to be dismissed as inadmissable, because we invaded under the
    ‘false pretence’ of a WMD search.
    How absurd.

  20. Balbulican Avatar
    Balbulican

    Well, looks like they won’t be found now, Pye. The Post says the 75th Exploitation Task Force is dismantling its operations for a likely departure in June after the group failed to find any biological and chemical weapons.
    “Members of the team told the newspaper that they no longer expected to find such stocks, and that they had consistently found targets identified by Washington to be inaccurate, or to have been looted and burned.”
    Surely they wouldn’t be talking about Colin Powell’s comprehensive and irrefutable evidence, could they?

  21. Pyecraft Avatar
    Pyecraft

    Ah, the old scorched earth alibi. The surprise is only yours Balb, it is obvious the ‘WMD’ were to be smuggled into Iran, strapped beneath camels presumably. We just need to find the evidence.
    Ding ding! The bell for round two has already been rung.

  22. balbulican Avatar
    balbulican

    Of course. How silly of me. And then from Iraq to North Korea, by trained dolphin.

  23. Pyecraft Avatar
    Pyecraft

    Clever connection, sir. :) :) :)

  24. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    Damn. I’ll never work in hollywood after this!