Long ago, I read an article on the website of a skeptic's magazine. It was about The Exorcist. The book and movie were based loosely on a real case that happened in Maryland in the '40s or '50s. There had been a documentary about the actual case that was shown on some cable network and the article I read debunked the inaccuracies in that film.
It was a 14-year-old boy who was supposedly possessed. His mother and grandmother were running around trying to get him an exorcism. His father had nothing to do with it. He'd come home and read the paper while his wife and mother-in-law went from church to church. They were Lutherans and the kid already had a few exorcisms before they went to the Catholics.
The reporter talked to some of the kid's friends from those days. They mentioned that the beds they had back then had springs and a thin matress and were on wheels. They were so light you couldn't turn over without the bed moving two feet. That's why the bed was moving around by itself. A popular passtime for young people in those days was spitting through your teeth and they were surprisingly accurate. The one surviving priest who took part in the exorcism said the kid spoke in Latin, but they thought he was imitating them like a brat. He said that scratches mysteriously appeared on his stomach, but they weren't watching him and did nothing to determine if he was doing it to himself.
None of the kid's friends thought he was possessed. They just thought he was a jerk.
And that's how it is with Shia LaBeouf. He's not mentally ill or struggling with alcoholism. Nothing he's done requires a psychiatric explanation. Not basing every action on a lucid comprehension of self-interest is not mental illness. There's no sign that he has any political opinions beyond his dislike for Trump, so his turning to racism so quickly to attack a bunch of Southern cops isn't terribly surprising. He's just a jerk.
He's blames his actions on alcoholism, but he also says he has no drive to drink. His publicist said that he doesn't need to get treatment immediately because he just won't drink until he finishes the movie. He's not addicted to alcohol and even if he were, that wouldn't explain the racism.
To quote Cracked.com, LaBeouf is "the absolute embodiment of a rich straight white guy who thinks he deserves everything and must also be a genius for getting it. And because he doesn't remember actually doing anything smart, it must be that everything he does is smart."
He has no education. He hasn't said or done anything that requires any brains.
He has lots of money. He'll be fine whatever happens. But I'd like to be rid of him and Daniel Clowes whose work he stole, who he continued to attack for months, should be rid of him, too.
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