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Fifth Column
Sean Penn can sue for loss of film role
2003-05-12
Here's a little Monday morning red meat.
Is there really a Hollywood blacklist against performers who don't support the Bush administration?
No.
The answer may lie in a Los Angeles courtroom. A California judge has ruled that actor Sean Penn can pursue a legal claim that he was fired from a film because of his piquant political views and a brief visit he made to Iraq last December. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Irving Feffer, who categorized his decision as "a total farce" "easy," ruled Friday that Mr. Penn could sue film producer Stephen Bing. The case could boost cable news ratings present a dramatic legal tableau, though CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin thinks the case won't make it to court. "In a Hollywood trial, the two sides will rattle on about the principle of the matter," Mr. Toobin said in an interview Friday, "but nine times out of 10, these things settle out of court because no one wants to risk looking like a greedy jerk total defeat. Fundamentally, this is a breach of contract case and a financial matter." Mr. Penn wants $10 million from Mr. Bing, who released the actor from a comedy film project in February. The actor said that the situation borrowed "a page from the dark era of Hollywood blacklisting," and that he was wrongly terminated.
Sean Penn in a comedy? That sucker was doomed from the start.
Mr. Bing, in turn, is suing Mr. Penn for $15 million, claiming the actor is trying to extort money and aspires "to turn their business dispute into a First Amendment crusade." "Penn crosses over a bright line into unprotected speech when he publicly advocated the violent overthrow of the U.S. government," Mr. Bing said in court papers, adding that Mr. Penn trashed "any standard of decency" by posing for photographs under a portrait of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and meeting with regime officials during his visit to Baghdad.
That would make a comedy film harder to sell, unless the next scene shows Mr. Penn being spanked by Condi Rice.
Mr. Penn is currently at work on the film, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," based on the true story of an insurance salesman who planned to kill President Nixon in 1974 by hijacking an airliner and crashing it into the White House.
"Fast Times at 12 o'clock High"?
Though he recently has dampened his political commentary after realizing that it was killing his career and making him look like a world-class wanker, Mr. Penn made much noise last year. Last October, he purchased a full-page ad in The Washington Post that accused the White House of ignoring diplomatic alternatives in the build-up to war in Iraq. During his Baghdad visit, Mr. Penn declared himself Jane Fonda a "patriot" and called the war "an unprecedented pre-emptive attack on a separate sovereign nation." The news media pounced, and "vilification began immediately from jingoistic media outlets," said Norman Solomon of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a New York-based anti-censorship media watchdog group.
Who'll take the bet that Mr. Solomon's group is 1) a store-fron with a computer, a phone, and six members; 2) tied in some way to the usual anti-war, ANSWER, indymedia, etc., crowd?
Yes, to the second. Their talking head appears on the cable news shows periodically, saying the predictable thing.
Though a blacklist has yet to emerge, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and Mr. Penn are depicted on a new "Deck of Weasels" card deck produced by the online news site "NewsMax" and meant as a companion to the Pentagon's official "Deck of Death" cards depicting fugitives from Saddam's regime.
Last time I checked, ridicule was still allowed under the First Amendment.
Mr. Bing, 37, and the heir to a $400 million real estate fortune, had his own tabloid travails after actress Elizabeth Hurley used DNA tests to prove in court last year that he had fathered her son.
Liz Hurley? Yeah, baby!
He was named in another paternity suit by MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian, who claimed Mr. Bing was the father of his ex-wife's daughter.
Posted by:Steve White

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