So, the Shia LaBeef Thing... (WARNING possible triggers)

[hooplala]

Has anyone heard about the recent Shia LaBeouf incident?

In a nutshell, less than a year ago he ripped off an art installation by Marina Abramovic, wherein he invited people to sit across from him while he did nothing in response.

He now says a woman raped him during this art piece. He did nothing to ward her off, as that was the point of the show. 

I'm not saying it wasn't rape, and I am loathe to victim blame in most cases, but... at what point do you just say "fuck art" and ward off the rapist?



(edited for title trigger warning)

[Demolition Squid]

The other artists involved have said they got her off him and threw her out. I can see it being ... traumatic/shocking enough that he didn't know what was happening at first.

I mean, I don't think he's said he didn't fight her off because of the art. He's said that afterwards he was just hurt and horrified.

What I find more difficult to understand is why the other artists threw the woman out rather than getting the police involved.

(Also, Abramovic has said she sees his art as something very different and unrelated to hers, for what that's worth. Not that I have any particular interest in him)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah I haven't seen anything anywhere saying that he didn't defend himself because art.

Sexual assault is weird. It's just so surreal you don't know what to do. It's like a carjacking or a home invasion; some people are going to fight back, some people are going to run away, but the vast majority are going to go into a numb compliant shock.

[Demolition Squid]

I will say the number of people going 'if he got hard then he must have wanted it' or similar is really horrifying.

There's been a lot of scepticism about this - some newspaper websites have even put the word rape in scare quotes, which... I mean, okay, maybe it wasn't technically rape, but at best it was sexual assault.

There's also a huge amount of assumptions being thrown around about what actually happened. We don't know any sticky details - but people have been assuming he got an erection, and that if he did, that somehow makes it less violating. I don't have any strong feelings about Shia really; he seems like someone who had a bit of a fame-induced meltdown, which is hardly unique, but I don't know the first thing about him as a person. I do think the attitudes this is exposing in commentators and the media betrays some very nasty truths about how victims of sexual abuse are treated, particularly when they are perceived in some way to 'deserve' it.

(I don't mean in any way that you're guilty of perpetuating these attitudes, Hoopla, but it is a trend I've noticed on news sites in general)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I will say the number of people going 'if he got hard then he must have wanted it' or similar is really horrifying.

There's been a lot of scepticism about this - some newspaper websites have even put the word rape in scare quotes, which... I mean, okay, maybe it wasn't technically rape, but at best it was sexual assault.

There's also a huge amount of assumptions being thrown around about what actually happened. We don't know any sticky details - but people have been assuming he got an erection, and that if he did, that somehow makes it less violating. I don't have any strong feelings about Shia really; he seems like someone who had a bit of a fame-induced meltdown, which is hardly unique, but I don't know the first thing about him as a person. I do think the attitudes this is exposing in commentators and the media betrays some very nasty truths about how victims of sexual abuse are treated, particularly when they are perceived in some way to 'deserve' it.

(I don't mean in any way that you're guilty of perpetuating these attitudes, Hoopla, but it is a trend I've noticed on news sites in general)

I'm especially disturbed by the "if he got an erection then he must have wanted it" line of reasoning, because it's such a parallel with "the body has ways of shutting these things down" type thinking. The body does what the body does; autonomic function like sexual arousal and pregnancy can happen whether we want them to or not.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Fear and conflict also cause sexual arousal.

[Cain]

I hadn't heard about this at all, but since this is the internet, I wont let that stop me from offering my opinion.

He was probably in shock that someone attacked him.  Adrenal dumps can really mess people up if they're not prepared for it, and most people aren't.   I mean, there's a reason ambush tactics are frequently so successful.

Rape's probably too strong a term, but sexual assault isn't, and if he's feeling that violated...well I can see why he might use the term, even if it's not the best one to describe what happened.  And yes, the erection thing is disturbing.  Involuntary reactions are basic science...although given a lot of people are still struggling with evolution, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

From what little I've read, it sounds like there was penetration. So, yeah, rape.

[Cain]

Oh right, well then yeah, in that case, absolutely.  Like I said, opinionating without knowledge 

[President Television]

I haven't really been following this, but it should be interesting to see how the public reacts to it. Female-on-male rape isn't a very well-known phenomenon, and it directly contradicts a lot of stereotypes and commonly-held preconceptions about gender roles. I think it's pretty telling that so far they seem to be treating him not much differently from how they treat rape victims in general. There is definitely an element of sexism to the treatment female rape victims receive(Shia Labeouf probably hasn't gotten any threats, for example, or been told he was asking for it the way he was dressed), but maybe it isn't as significant to their ostracization as is often assumed. It seems apparent, to me at least, that the role of the rape victim is itself one that our culture views as intrinsically contemptible, and that people in general are trained to subject to scrutiny.

[Doktor Howl]

It's really simple:  If someone has sex with someone else who hasn't consented, it is by definition "rape".  Claiming that if it was rape, he wouldn't get hard, sounds a whole lot like "she wanted it".

[hooplala]

My understanding of the situation was that the only way this event was allowed to transpire was precisely because Shia didn't resist. Because that was the point of the piece. People were "allowed" to do whatever they wanted, and he wasn't going to physically react.

My point wasn't that what transpired wasn't rape; it clearly was. 

My question was, if a situation in an art installation becomes that uncomfortable, at what point does one reasonably pack it in and break the art wall?

[hooplala]

I should have named the thread differently, because my interest isn't really in this particular story, but in this kind of situation.

When art turns into something horrible.

[Faust]

The not resisting argument only has foundation in the strange behaviour he's presented in the last year. Paralysed with fear or otherwise unsure how to act to exit a situation is an all too common scenario.

The reason he is facing unfounded ridicule and lack of support is mostly his peculiar behaviour over the last year.

He was in Lars Von triers Nymphomaniac (Part I is pretty well made and occasionally funny, part II is puerile garbage).

Over the last year he plagiarised other peoples work, then plagiarised the defences verbatim from other artists defending against accusations of plagiarism.

That was really only the start of some very bonkers behaviour which has led to widespread mistrust of Labeouf and this odd concept that everything he was doing was a publicity stunt somehow masterminded by Von Trier.

They might be right about all the weird stuff up until this, but I cant see anyone saying something as awful as this for a publicity stunt.

[Faust]

I should have named the thread differently, because my interest isn't really in this particular story, but in this kind of situation.

When art turns into something horrible.

I believe if the intent is art, including a premeditated understanding that rape could occur, then its either entirely art without rape or, rape without it any longer being art.

The only reason I hold this belief is because the only alternative is that it is possible to have degrees and shades of grey where it both art and rape, which is not a concept I am willing to entertain at this point because it gives rise to the concept of any dark aspect being explored as performance art.

Sure there are loads of art concepts and statements that could be examined through murder but it's artistic value would be suspect.