14 DAY TRIAL // Shia Labeouf has done a full transition from the boy actor who used to do children's shows like “Even Stevens” to full-fledged actor/artist who gets kicks out of tricking the audience and posing as a misunderstood spirit. This year in particular has seen Shia's transgression to artist reach new heights that have not been without controversy.
It all started late last year, when Shia decided that he was going to make his directorial debut with a short film. The production premiered, received moderate appraisal from the critics and it was deemed a good effort for a first-time director.
At first, there were the plagiarism claims
All in all, a good debut, but it soon came crashing down as someone noticed that the storyline about an internet critic, consumed by his own influence as he reviews the work of a director he once admired, bears striking similarities with a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes.
Later, it was revealed that the entire dialogue from the movie was actually taken from the comic but not credited. As you can imagine, this was quite a blow for Shia, who was mocked endlessly on social media and forced to publicly apologize for stealing someone else's work.
What followed was a series of confusing acts which made more and more people think that Shia was acting erratically and should be, in all honesty, committed. The actor apologized for plagiarizing by further plagiarizing apologies.
There were quite a few people, celebrities included, who thought that Shia was off his rocker. It didn't help that the actor got into a physical altercation in a bar and then into a verbal altercation in a restaurant.
The "I Am Not Famous Anymore" Stage
Then there came the coup de grace: the actor announcing that he was giving up on public life. He showed up at the Berlin Film Festival at the beginning of 2014 wearing a paper bag on top of his head, which read “I Am Not Famous Anymore.”
Months later, he would set up his own art installation, entitled #IAMSORRY, and would do performance art. People attending would find out that his performance was to sit there, not talking to anyone, crying out his eye for hours at a time.
Now, almost a full year after the show took place, Shia came forward to say in a recent interview that he was raped by a woman. While such a statement would have problems going unnoticed by the media, in light of the recent rape scandals, including the one involving Bill Cosby, the matter positively blew up, particularly on social media, as it rubbed people the wrong way to hear that a man claimed to have been raped.
By this point, Shia's rape claims seemed nothing out of the ordinary
Giving Shia's erratic behavior in the past, people found it hard to believe that a man (with violent tendencies no less) would allow a woman to take off his clothes and rape him while he stood there for the sake of art.
TV personality Piers Morgan was among the first to publicly bash Shia for his rape allegations, claiming that the actor was mocking real rape victims with his claim.
Yesterday, several artists who worked with Shia on that project came forward to reveal that an incident with a woman did actually take place at the time, but they failed to give out any specific details.
They just mentioned that there was an incident, but they stopped it as soon as they noticed something was wrong and that the woman ran off.
The question now is whether to take this claim seriously or to treat it like one of Shia's other eccentricities, just one of those things he's done. To be clear, rape is always a serious thing, no matter the circumstances, but in Shia's case, it all looks like a case of the boy who cried wolf.
Shia's performance art, not so artsy and not so entertaining
Because LaBeouf is trying so hard to remain relevant and to establish himself as so much more than a regular Hollywood actor, for him it's become a constant battle to come up with new things in order to keep the headlines and to keep people talking about him.
Whereas Joaquin Phoenix managed the whole fake mockumentary thing flawlessly and even the “I'm not famous anymore” stage, Shia failed miserably, becoming ridiculed instead of revered for his courage and creativity.
Even his Broadway efforts failed, whereas people such as James Franco managed to be successful in their side projects, although it didn't look like they were taking them seriously. Shia only managed to be known as the plagiarizer, the violent drunk and the actor who freaks out people on set for trying too hard.
There are still rumors going around that Shia managed to freak people out on the set of “Fury” when he slashed his own face and picked at the scab to give himself a more authentic look, and also grossed out people by not showering for weeks, all in the name of method acting.
All of this, plus the fact that he took a year to come forward with the allegations, just as his fame was slipping, makes his rape claim so difficult to believe.
