Sean Penn continues to defend Oscars green card joke: 'Everybody that does nothing with their life...has something to say'

The actor said voicing outrage on social media gives people 'something to do'

Sean Penn at the 87th Annual Academy Awards (Getty )

Sean Penn had some scathing words for those who criticised him on social media – as he upheld his non-apology for joking at the Oscars that Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu didn't have a green card to work in the USA.

Unperturbed by criticism, the Milk actor said that people had "miss[ed] the irony", but that he was not surprised that "I live in an idiocracy".

Speaking to Roy Sekoff yesterday during HuffPost Live, the 54-year-old actor agreed with the suggestion that he refused to play the game of meeting "faux outrage" with "faux contrition".

Penn said: "When people seize a moment, they say 'oh he talked about that thing that I can relate to that which identifies me as an activist or as a person with an opinion, hence I’ll jump on it and completely miss the irony of it'."

He compared the blogosphere to a town hall, where some people come to help things "move forward", but "people by and large come to hear the sound of their own voice".

However, he added that if it made people happy to behave in such a way then that was their prerogative.

"Everybody that does nothing with their life except masturbate and ask their parents if their socks are dry gets on this thing and has something to say," he said.

"And so, you know, I mean if it gives people something to do, I suppose it’s not worse than religion."

Penn, who appears in forthcoming film The Gunman, has previously said that the Oscars comment was an inside joke between him and the Birdman director.

"There's a little inside humour with he and I," Penn said.

"[I knew] that he would be the first person in that room to know that his film won."