Shia LaBeouf, what are you doing?
He’s watching himself, that’s what he’s doing.
Sometimes when I am in class where I take notes on my laptop, I get distracted by the Internet. Today, I was distracted by a livestream of Shia LaBeouf watching himself on the big screen. Yep, apparently Shia is in a New York City theater and viewing all of his movies, in reverse chronological order, for three days straight. This is all part of a project dubbed #ALLMYMOVIES. Clever title.
I can’t look away. It’s 12:15 AM right now, and there is Shia, wearing a winter jacket over a hoodie over a t-shirt, smirking at the screen. Why is he so cold? He’s donning a full beard and mustache and looks almost-homeless, which is possible because it’s not like he’s famous anymore.
The livestream focuses only on him; everyone around him is blurry. Can you imagine sitting right next to him? I wonder if anyone has tried to engage him in conversation.
Even though I can’t hear a thing, I can’t look away from the screen. His face is thrown into lightness and darkness as the scenes in front of him change. Is he watching Disturbia? I, Robot?
I asked a friend of mine in the city if he was planning on going to participate in this art project. He said he wished he could, especially to see Transformers or Holes. (For the record, I love Holes. I would love to sit next to Stanley Yelnats and watch those scary spotted lizards get shot at by that crazy Mr. Sir.)
But why is he doing this? Does he want to be a celebrity or not? A writer from the Rolling Stone said, “LaBeouf’s curiously counterintuitive attempts to escape from the public eye have been far more artful than any of the things he did to put himself in it. Everyone thought he was having a nervous breakdown. Now his meltdown increasingly seems more like a calculated plan to confront — and perhaps destroy — the modern concept of celebrity.”
Perhaps he is destroying the concept of celebrity, but I kind of still think he’s having a breakdown. As my friend poignantly said, “I feel like everything [Shia’s done] since Even Stevens (#RIP) has been reactionary to the show’s cancellation. Now he’s trying to figure out where it all went wrong.”
Preach.
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