Shia LaBeouf is a Clown

In lieu of recent recent events regarding Shia Labeouf which we discussed in class I figured that it would make sense to analyze his strange behaviors. For those who do not know Shia Labeouf was watching all of the movies he had made, and live streamed his reactions. As many know Shia Labeouf’s movies have been regarded as less than good. In the live stream people watched his reactions to his own acting which made him cringe and want to hide his face. This live stream has not been the only odd things that Shia Labeouf has done.

For starters he chose to take a role in the Transformers movies, which granted are cool because of Michael Bay’s trademark explosions, but lacked good acting and story. He also decided that for one red carpet event to wear a brown paper bag over his head that had the words “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” written on it. On the other hand he has had a decent acting career. His movie career has included very successful movies despite the utter lack of sanity that he displays to the media. He has starred in the first three Transformers movies and the Fourth Indiana Jones movie. These seemingly good franchises hired him and then were ruined by his acting. Or were they.....?

His acting is at best only second rate, but most of his movies have made a profit. The Transformers movies have all been successful even though his loud “no...no...no no NO NO NO NO NO!” dialogue was corrupting the seemingly awesome action scenes. In Indiana Jones the whole plot and story were terrible, but it still made money. So, this does not make sense. How can his choice in movies and acting be bad, but he makes a profit in the movies he is in. Also how do his actions outside of acting contribute to his career.

I have a theory for how his success is made. Shia Labeouf tries to act in movies with lots of action sequences to make up for his bad dialogue. He also tries to work in films that always have a male role who is troubled or just trying to get through life. Shia Labeouf looks for specific roles that help to make up for his genuinely mediocre acting. His choice in roles also appears to be formulaic. Then he uses his strange actions outside of acting to promote himself and his name. These two things together make him one of the most intriguing businessmen in the world.

Shia Labeouf broke the mold of how to gain fame in Hollywood. Most people try to make their fame by having amazing looks or great acting in a movie which will send them to stardom because people will talk about them enough that their name will become household. Shia Labeouf did none of those things once he realized he basically a joke among actors. The moment he realized this he changed his course to one of his own making. He used the joke of his acting career to become even more famous. His acting in major franchises or in A movies after the first Transformers movie is terrible. This shows about the point when he knew how he was going to become famous not by the normal beaten path. This memeified performance clear could not have been one that anyone could take seriously. After this point in his career he would not ever act in a standard manner. For example in Fury, his character tries to be a resolute man who is trying to see himself through the war with the help of the rest of the crew in his tank, but he comes off as awkward and creepily staring in some scenes. Once he had changed his acting he also changed his life outside of movies. He started acting as though he was trying to make himself a fool in incidents such as the paper bag and the watching of his own movies.

The way he became famous is by becoming the class clown of Hollywood. Although this might sound like a bad thing it truly is not. His path to fame that he made for himself has not harmed anyone noticeably. Not to mention that he is one of the few people in Hollywood to create his fame in an innovative way. He told himself to do it, just do it.