From One Douche Artiste To Another: James Franco On Shia LaBeouf

Since James Franco is the current reigning master of douche art, he has piped in on the “Girl, you’re going through something” phase of life that is currently happening to Shia LaDouche. James Franco wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times (because EVERYBODY is writing a damn op-piece for The New York Times) and in it he wonders if Shia is in the middle of a nervous breakdown or if he’s just trying to rebel from being a privileged rich actor who probably doesn’t have to work another day in his life. It really is hard out there for a privileged rich actor. There was an earthquake at Death Valley today and that’s because Marlon Brando’s ashes were rolling over James Franco comparing him to Shia LaDouche, because both of them rebelled against Hollywood.

James Franco doesn’t even really get into LaDouche’s plagiarizing antics. James Franco mostly brain shits about how as a movie star you don’t have that much control over the end product of a movie and Shia’s crappy performance art pieces might be his way of getting control of his image. Sure, whatever image Shia had he’s drowning in dirty enema water, but at least he’s doing it himself.

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.

But James, of course, mostly wrote about himself. This is the part where you find out that you can roll your eyes and heave at the same time.

At times I have felt the need to dissociate myself from my work and public image. In 2009, when I joined the soap opera “General Hospital” at the same time as I was working on films that would receive Oscar nominations and other critical acclaim, my decision was in part an effort to jar expectations of what a film actor does and to undermine the tacit — or not so tacit — hierarchy of entertainment.

If your eyeballs haven’t burst into flames from the insufferableness of it all, read James Franco give LaDouche a little warning.

Mr. LaBeouf has been acting since he was a child, and often an actor’s need to tear down the public creation that constrains him occurs during the transition from young man to adult. I think Mr. LaBeouf’s project, if it is a project, is a worthy one. I just hope that he is careful not to use up all the good will he has gained as an actor in order to show us that he is an artist.

Both the pot and the kettle grew eyes so they could roll them at all of this.

I’m sure LaDouche is going to respond to all of this by hiring a plane to sky write ALL the lyrics to T.I.’s “You Don’t Me“ above James Franco’s house. But really, James Franco and Shia LaDouche really need to get into an art gallery and see who can out-performance art each other. It’d be like watching a b-hole wet fart into another b-hole.

Pics: Wooooo Magazine, The Daily Beast