MARRAKECH, Morocco (AP) — Sean Penn on Tuesday blasted the organizers of the Oscars for being cowards who, in effect, limit the kinds of films that can be funded and made.
The 64-year-old actor said at the Marrakech Film Festival that he gets excited about the Academy Awards only on the rare occasion that films he values are nominated.
“The producers of the academy have exercised really extraordinary cowardice when it comes to being part of the world of expression and, in fact, have largely been part of limiting the imagination and limiting different cultural expressions," Penn said at the festival, where he received a career achievement award this week.
“I don’t get very excited about what we’ll call the Academy Awards,” he said, noting exceptions when certain films grace the ceremony, including Sean Baker's “ The Florida Project,” Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” and Jacques Audiard's “ Emilia Perez. ”
Penn's remarks dovetail with longstanding criticisms of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for lacking diversity within the ranks of its members and the films that they celebrate with awards.
The institution has in recent years taken steps to reform and rebrand itself, but has faced criticism for not going far enough.
Penn also lauded Iranian-Danish director Ali Abassi and his latest film “ The Apprentice " about President Donald Trump. It faced difficulty finding an American distributor in the lead-up to the U.S. election in November.
“It’s kind of jaw-dropping how afraid this ‘business of mavericks’ is when they get a great film like that with great, great acting,” he said. “They, too, can be as afraid as a piddly little Republican congressman.”
As part of a career tribute, the Marrakech Film Festival is screening four of Penn's films this week in Morocco's tourism capital. Local media in Morocco reported several audience members exiting a screening of “Milk” during a scene that depicted two men in bed. Homosexuality is illegal under Morocco's penal code, although cases are not frequently prosecuted.
The actor, whose 2023 film “ Superpower ” documents war in Ukraine, also voiced support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and called himself a “patriot in crisis” in response to a question about the American political landscape.
FILE - Sean Penn arrives at the Booksellers area of the White House for the State Dinner, May 23, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
DALLAS (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and breakout pop star Chappell Roan were among the year's most talked-about people. Their names were also among the most mispronounced.
On Wednesday, the language-learning company Babbel and closed-captioning company The Captioning Group released a list of the words that news anchors, politicians and other public figures in the U.S. struggled with the most in 2024. The list also provides a retrospective of the year’s most discussed topics and people, from pop culture to politics.
“It’s a nice way to kind of look back into the year and see everything that has happened,” said Esteban Touma, a linguistic and cultural expert at Babbel.
Roan — whose hits include “Good Luck, Babe!” — shot to fame this year and is nominated for six Grammy awards. According to the list, her name is pronounced CHAP-uhl ROHN, not SHA-pel ROW-an.
During Harris' unsuccessful run for president this year, her great-nieces took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention to clear up how to say her first name, pronounced COM-a-la. Also making the list was U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose last name still leaves people tongue-tied. During his 2020 presidential run, his campaign made posters and T-shirts with the pronunciation “Boot-Edge-Edge” to help.
Other words on the list include:
— Dutch Kooikerhondje, pronounced COY-ker-HUND-che, is a breed of dog that made it's way into the lexicon this year. This is largely because Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani has a Kooikerhondje called Decoy who won the hearts of fans while delivering a ceremonial first pitch.
— The name of the actress Zendaya, who starred in “Challengers,” is often mispronounced as zen-DIE-uh, but it should be zen-DAY-a.
— Online fast-fashion giant Shein is SHE-in, not SHEEN.
— Newly discovered exoplanet Speculoos-3b is pronounced SPEK-yuh-lohss three bee.
— Phryge, the mascot of the Paris Olympics, is pronounced FREE-je. It was a nod to the Phrygian cap, an emblematic accessory of the French revolutionaries.
— Semaglutide, the drug in weight-loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy, is pronounced sem-ah-GLOO-tide, not SEE-mah-gloo-tide.
— The last name of Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who starred in “Saltburn,” is pronounced key-OH-gin.
Nancy Niedzielski, chair of the linguistics department at Rice University in Houston, points out that most of the words on the list are not English, so it’s not surprising that they would be mispronounced in the U.S. The key to pronouncing them correctly, she said, would probably just be hearing them spoken, she said.
“There aren’t really tricks short of knowing how orthology works in that language,” she said.
Several of the words on the U.S. list, including Keoghan, Phryge and Shein, also made the list for the U.K., which Babbel compiled with the help of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters, an organization for subtitling professionals.
Other words on the U.K. list include flygskam, a Swedish term pronounced FLEEG-skam, popularized by climate activist Greta Thunberg, which translates as “flight shame,” and the Chagos Islands, pronounced CHAY-goss, which made the list after the British government this year returned sovereignty of the long-contested Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius.
Touma, a native Spanish speaker, said if you can't pronounce a word, it's important to just keep trying.
“One of the problems we have is our mouths are not trained to do these sounds that come from different languages,” he said.
Touma admitted even he struggles with some words, including Harris' first name. Even though he knows the correct pronunciation, he said, it's hard to get it correct in the moment when he's in a conversation.
As Roan's music gained popularity over the year, it was interesting cultural moment to watch as people learned to pronounce her first and last name, he said.
“The way we create understanding with each other is just trying to do these things,” Touma said.
FILE - Phryge, the Olympics 2024 mascot dances at the South Paris Arena, during the men's handball match between Denmark and Egypt at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga, File)
FILE - Barry Keoghan arrives at the 15th Governors Awards on Nov. 17, 2024, at The Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, FIle)
FILE - Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani brings his dog Decoy to mound before Decoy delivered the ceremonial first pitch prior to a baseball game between the Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
In. this combination image left to right; Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Allentown, Pa., Nov. 4, 2024, and Chappell Roan in Elmont, N.Y., on Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Invision)
