Oh Boy: Sean Penn To Direct January 6th Movie Starring Bradley Cooper

I walked into my wife’s and my room sometime in the afternoon. She was taking a nap. We were in the process of a month-long move, so we could be settled in our new place in time for her to give birth to two twins at the hospital down the street two months later. There was stuff for me to do. But I didn’t know what else to do, because I was in shock. So, I walked into the room, woke her up, and said, “…they’re storming the Capitol Building.”

The shock still feels potent. Something very wrong was happening, and it felt like a turning point in a long-simmering battle with people who want to destroy the very fabric of this country, and here they were, taking things to their next, violent place. It was horrific, and the events that unfolded that day would rile up people on both sides of the aisle. Still, when I checked the Facebook of a crazy aunt later that night (never do that), I saw her spinning the events throughout the day. Going from saying it was the will of a frustrated people (her people, to be clear) to insisting that it was something staged.

It was barely even 9 PM, and she had already begun to change the narrative, and she was not alone. That has been the tactic of the side that committed such an act. They are determined to pretend that it didn’t happen the way we think, or wasn’t what we all witnessed. It is insulting, to say the least, and worrying, because something that felt all-encompassing and tide-changing has been, it feels, pushed to the wayside. But, like, does that mean I need to see Bradley Cooper in a movie about it? Maybe?

That’s what’s happening, whether I’m interested in it or not. Deadline is reporting that Sean Penn will write and direct a movie about a cop on the day of the attempted insurrection. It will star Cooper as the cop, and start shooting next year, as Cooper is currently tied up in an Ocean’s 11 flick. According to the article, the film will detail the officer’s life and not necessarily be a “January 6th movie.” Sure, Jan.

That’s not even me taking a shot at the film’s intentions. I’m mainly just pointing out that, if you are going to make a movie that culminates in something so memorable and impactful, that’s all anybody will be talking about. Both sides will care greatly about how the events are portrayed; to be fair, they should. Things like this have the ability to shape how people view events or other people. That’s likely why Michael Jackson’s estate was so interested in putting out a biopic that sanitizes his legacy.

To be fair, I don’t think Penn will portray the events as anything other than horrific. I don’t expect him to sanitize things. I just know that I am certainly not ready to watch those events be dramatized. That doesn’t mean others won’t, though. And hey, maybe I’ll change my mind by the time the film rolls around sometime in (presumably) 2028.