Sean Penn Says #MeToo Movement Is Dividing Men & Women

Sean Penn is opening up in a rare interview and he is facing backlash for his comments on the #MeToo movement.

Today‘s Natalie Morales asked Penn and his The First co-star Natasha McElhone if they believe the #MeToo movement influenced their new Hulu series at all.

“I’d like to think that none of it was influenced by what they call the movement of #MeToo,” Penn said. “I think it’s influenced by the things that are developing in terms of the empowerment of women who’ve been acknowledging each other and being acknowledged by men.”

“This is a movement that was largely shouldered by a kind of receptacle of the salacious,” he added.

When asked for a clarification on what he meant, Sean added, “We don’t know what’s a fact in many of the cases. Salacious is as soon as you call something a movement that is really a series of many individual accusers, victims, accusations, some of which are unfounded. The spirit of much of what has been the #MeToo movement is to divide men and women.”

Natalie pointed out that the movement has united women and Sean responded by saying he’s spoken to women “of all walks of life” and “there’s a common sense that is not represented at all in the discussion when it comes to the media discussion of it.”

“The discussion where ‘if Sean Penn says this, so and so is going to attack him for saying this because of that,’” he said. “I’m very suspicious of a movement that gets glommed onto in great stridency and rage and without nuance. And even when people try to discuss it in a nuanced way, the nuance is attacked.”