James Franco Wrote An Op-Ed In Defence Of Shia LaBeouf For The New York Times

Shia LaBeouf has been in media headlines a lot lately for his recent shenanigans, all stemming from his non-apology to Daniel Clowes back in December over allegations that he’d plagiarised the author’s comic Justin M. Damiano in his debut short film, Howard Cantour.

Since then, LaBeouf’s gone on to plagiarise apologies from UK Prime Ministers, porn stars and Lena Dunham; hired a skywriting plane for the sole purpose of being a total dick; headbutted some guy in a bar brawl; worn an attention-grabbing paper bag over his head at the Berlin premiere of his new film, Nymphomaniac; and culminated the whole ridiculous saga with a Marina Abramovic-aping, teary-eyed art installation in Los Angeles last week (“Shia’s tears are crocodile tears, the tears of a child actor whose first trick was learning to cry on cue,” wrote Grantland‘s Molly Lambert of the project).

“Who does this guy think he is, James Franco?” the world has continuously asked itself of LaBeouf’s hijinks over the past few weeks. Well, Franco must have a Google Alert on himself or something, ’cause he’s jumped into the whole debate with a brief op-ed for The New York Times titled ‘Why Actors Act Out‘, because James Franco’s a fuckin’ expert.

“This behavior could be a sign of many things, from a nervous breakdown to mere youthful recklessness. For Mr. LaBeouf’s sake, I hope it is nothing serious. Indeed I hope — and, yes, I know that this idea has pretentious or just plain ridiculous overtones — that his actions are intended as a piece of performance art, one in which a young man in a very public profession tries to reclaim his public persona,” begins Franco, comparing LaBeouf’s action to a long tradition of actors “lashing out at their profession”, including Marlon Brando, Joaquin Phoenix, and, uh yeah… James Franco.

“Because film actors typically experience fame in greater measure, our personas can feel at the mercy of forces far beyond our control. Our rebellion against the hand that feeds us can instigate a frenzy of commentary that sets in motion a feedback loop: acting out, followed by negative publicity, followed by acting out in response to that publicity, followed by more publicity, and so on. Participating in this call and response is a kind of critique, a way to show up the media by allowing their oversize responses to essentially trivial actions to reveal the emptiness of their raison d’être,” continued Franco.

Although Franco’s empathetic defence of his fellow media-skewering actor is sweet, over at Vulture, Gilbert Cruz highlights the main issue why people perhaps aren’t jumping on-side with LaBeouf’s exploits — you know, the fact that the whole ‘project’ pretty much started as a dick move.

“The problem is that there’s a solid case that the whole thing is a put-on by a man who got caught and couldn’t let his apology lie. Instead, he had to skywrite things and steal other people’s words and divert attention from his intellectual crime to the point that we’re talking about whether or not LaBeouf is crazy, rather than whether or not he’s a plagiarist.”

In summary, apologise sincerely, then go ahead and make your wacky art. At least then we can just criticise you for being a pretentious wanker rather than a douchebag. That’s basically how these things work.