Shia LaBeouf Is Still Trying To Fly Under That Radar
"Listen to me when I tell you to ignore me," he yells at everyone who is trying to pretend he doesn't exist.
Will you stop talking about Shia LaBeouf please? And stop thinking Shia Labeouf-ish thoughts? And stop writing about him on your website all the time? Please? He’s had enough.
A month ago, after all that plagiarism stuff that he entirely brought on himself, he declared himself done with fame.
In light of the recent attacks against my artistic integrity, I am retiring from all public life.
— Shia LaBeouf (@thecampaignbook) January 10, 2014
But it was not that easy. There were still a bunch of headline-stealing things Shia had no choice but to do, such as headbutting some guy in a bar fight, and promoting the new film he was somehow forced to star in.
Over the weekend, LaBeouf arrived to the Berlinale Film Festival dressed like this, and missing a tooth:
Then, during a press conference for Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac — a film solely about sex that includes a lot of sex and is being marketed strongly via its sexiness — a daring member of the press asked LaBeouf his first question: what it was like to be in a movie that was so much about sex?
“When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much,” Labeouf said, slowly and deliberately, before pirouetting walking out of the room as his stunned co-stars watched on. It transpired that he had stolen those words from an infamous press conference given by French footballer Eric Cantona, another cool dood who liked to feign gravitas and also occasionally punch people.
In an attempt to draw no further attention to himself, Shia Labeouf quietly left the conference and chilled out in his hotel room for a few days, citing a stomach bug.
Oh wait, no he didn’t. Instead, he went to his film premiere with a paper bag over his head, emblazoned with the words ‘I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE’ and also a bar code, because of fame and commodity and the disposability and dehumanisation of public figures or whatever.
He then sent out a series of tweets.
Because the best way of averting attention is by shouting the same thing over and over again at 114,000 strangers.
A tantrum? Performance art? An exceedingly unflattering plagiary of Joaquin Phoenix, circa 2009? You be the judge.