Sean: #MeToo divides men and women

Two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn has sparked controversy with his latest comments about the #MeToo movement, saying in an interview that he was “very suspicious” of a campaign that had divided men and women.

Penn, who appeared on NBC’s Today programme to promote his television debut on Hulu’s The First, said the popular debate was “too black and white” and had been at times too quick to pass judgement on the accused.

“Well, we don’t know what’s a fact in many of the cases,” the 58-year-old Penn said. “The spirit of much of what has been the #MeToo movement is to divide men and women.”

His co-star Natascha McElhone had said she believed the female characters in The First — a fictional series set in the near future — were influenced by the #MeToo movement, but Penn disagreed. “I’d like to think that none of it was influenced by what they call the movement of #MeToo,” he said, saying the campaign against sexual assault had been “largely shouldered by a kind of receptacle of the salacious.”