Shia, himself.

November 30, 2014 7:47 AM

Actor/artist Shia LaBoeuf was interviewed recently by Dazed Digital, the online version of Dazed & Confused Magazine. In the interview (unedited version here), he mentions being raped while performing his piece #IAMSORRY. The other artists he collaborated with have commented, and there is an interesting reaction piece here.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering (22 comments total)

Piers Morgan weighs in (unhelpfully).
posted by el io at 8:08 AM on November 30, 2014

Metafilter: Piers Morgan Weighs In (unhelpfully)
posted by Yowser at 8:12 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was pretty impressed by his performance in Fury... though he's playing a religious maniac, so it might not be so much of a stretch.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:13 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I too found his performance in Fury to be a surprisingly strong element in an otherwise relentlessly nihilistic film.


(unhelpfully)

Goes without saying.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:16 AM on November 30, 2014

The actor said the collaboration was a response to his “genuine existential crisis” after he was accused of plagiarism when he lifted portions of a Daniel Clowes short story for a film he was working on.

The piece in turn seems to owe a lot to Marina Abramovic. Or was that the point, maybe? Is this irony? Meta-irony?
posted by carter at 8:22 AM on November 30, 2014

The relationship (or lack of one) to Ambramovic's work is discussed in the interview.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:24 AM on November 30, 2014

My inclination is to believe a person who says something happened to them, without second guessing their credibility etc. I can absolutely come up with situations where a 'grown man' did not feel capable of refusing other than his direct personal safety or securing his income, for example if he has a history of abuse.

I think the woman in question absolutely would't think that she raped him, but then that is also the case for huge amounts of people who have, indeed, raped someone.
posted by Iteki at 8:25 AM on November 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Becca Stanek's piece seems right on to me. Even chronic liars and attention-seekers get assaulted.

I try to choose the compassionate reaction; I'd rather be a sucker than be complicit with trauma.

Which is really easy for me to say, since my words will have next to no ramifications for me.
posted by allthinky at 8:26 AM on November 30, 2014 [4 favorites]

If it did happen...that's awful.

If it did not happen....maybe the victim-blaming is precisely the point. Quite often female victims of rape are told they shouldn't have done this or worn that, they should have fought harder, that their account is unreliable, etc, etc.
posted by notsnot at 8:28 AM on November 30, 2014

Two of the artists involved with the project came forward and said that they became aware of the situation, and then stopped it. So, it's not just Shia's word that this happened.

And you know what? I don't care if he's someone who will do literally "anything for attention and sympathy". It's so, so hard for women (and even harder for men) to come forward about shit like this. And your voicing your personal opinion on the quality of whoever is making the claim is not more important than the damage done by creating an atmosphere where people think it's okay to shout "lies!" at those who may have been assaulted.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:31 AM on November 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

Some rapists choose victims with troubled pasts because they are less likely to be believed -- see the discussions about Bill Cosby for many examples.
posted by 1066 at 8:36 AM on November 30, 2014

Mod note: some comments deleted. This is 100% not going to become a thread about whether or not someone is lying about being raped. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:36 AM on November 30, 2014 [9 favorites]

So pathetic if someone used LeBoeuf's troubled apology performance to beat him and attempt nonconsensual sex with him. You can almost see the shallow BDSM thinking at work - well, if he wants humiliation, we can give it to him - but the idea that someone would use rape as a response to art is disgusting. That LeBoeuf is almost certainly mentally ill in some way, or at least deeply conflicted about the relationship between his public and private personas, makes it even more so.

Would he or his fellow "Metamodernist" artists lie about this? Sure, it's possible. It's even possible the rapist and her boyfriend were part of the performance. That would be the most pathetic situation, for sure. But it's not difficult for me to imagine someone deciding to take advantage of LeBoeuf's "feel free to abuse me" show by stripping him and trying to rape him.
posted by mediareport at 8:37 AM on November 30, 2014 [3 favorites]

Why on earth would you not believe him? Am I missing something. Why isn't everyone outraged about this and trying to find the criminal who did it to him?

Really, what am I missing here? (I"m not super familiar with the actor.)

In no way could this ever be a publicity stunt.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:38 AM on November 30, 2014

Understood, restless_nomad.

I'll simply say this: The piece by Becca Stanek linked in the FPP is really, really good. Please don't skip it.
posted by Frayed Knot at 8:41 AM on November 30, 2014

In no way could this ever be a publicity stunt.

With LeBoeuf, it could be, mrgrimm - a point discussed in that sharp final link in the post. He's been imploding in public for a couple of years now, upping the ante with increasingly bizarre stunts. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that he's exaggerating. I don't currently believe he is, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.
posted by mediareport at 8:44 AM on November 30, 2014

(not understood, because as soon as the deletion message went up, people went right back to explaining how Shai's a crazy person who shouldn't be believed, without the comments that say things like "Yo, the other artists as part of the work collaborate what he said, so stop doing the thing where you don't believe rape survivors, yeesh)

Read the articles. It is entirely out of the realm of possibility because other people have said they know it happened and stopped it in progress. Which shouldn't be necessary, because rape survivors should be believed.
posted by FritoKAL at 8:48 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

though he's playing a religious maniac, so it might not be so much of a stretch.

Is he, I think what is interesting about his character is that that is overtly an act - he plays a soldier who is using his religion the only way of surviving the horrors of war. All of his interactions with the rest of the crew reveal this, he is no saint, he is the gunner who fires incendiary shells into buildings to burn people alive and he knows it. Religion is all he has left, but he knows it is not enough. Shia plays that part really well, there are several scenes, the aftermath of one particular battle, the excruciating meal, where he is the most interesting person on the screen because he has nothing to say. His performance in those scenes is what impressed me most.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 8:48 AM on November 30, 2014

Between him and Megan Fox, it would seem that fame (and fate) has not been kind to the lead cast of the first two live-action Transformers movies.
posted by surazal at 8:59 AM on November 30, 2014

This is all so very bizarre. It does sound like a PR stunt, but one done to make a very good point.

Still, you have to wonder why, in this particular instance, he didn't stop anything. It's one thing to do a performance, it's another really let someone do anything they want with you. Perhaps it's a sign of deep guilt over the plagiarism or something else? I don't know. In the interview he sounds like he's living in mental spaces that most people don't dwell on, so his reasoning might not even make sense.

But this brings up all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Why would someone do this to him? Why would he allow this to occur, when he was situation he was in control in, what was going through his mind? What happened afterwards, what did the next person who came in the room do?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:23 AM on November 30, 2014

I wonder if he thinks he's real anymore.
posted by johnnydummkopf at 9:26 AM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

So pathetic if someone used LeBoeuf's troubled apology performance to beat him and attempt nonconsensual sex with him. You can almost see the shallow BDSM thinking at work - well, if he wants humiliation, we can give it to him - but the idea that someone would use rape as a response to art is disgusting. That LeBoeuf is almost certainly mentally ill in some way, or at least deeply conflicted about the relationship between his public and private personas, makes it even more so.

Great comment. This seems very much the case. Some asshole decided to abuse him because he is famous and he felt trapped in the confines of the piece that he obviously planned to take very seriously. The proper response is to feel terrible for him, and hope that the perpetrator is identified and publically shamed.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:28 AM on November 30, 2014 [4 favorites]