Something very bizarre is going on with the Shia LaBeouf plagiarism story. Something else very bizarre. On top of all the other bizarre stuff that was already happening. Now it looks as though, not content with plagiarising, then plagiarising his apology for plagiarising, LaBeouf is now either plagiarising again, or plagiarising to take the piss out of the whole plagiarism scandal, and out of his poor plagiarizee (is that even a word?).
According to BuzzFeed, as relayed by HuffPost and many other venues, LaBeouf tweeted a picture of the “story board for my next short ‘Daniel Boring’ It’s like Fassbinder meets half-baked Nabokov on Gilligan’s Island.” Sounds fascinating. Counsel for Daniel Clowes, the offended party in LaBeouf’s first round of plagiarism and author of a well-known strip that just happens to be called “David Boring,” didn’t think so, though. Even though LaBeouf followed the first picture tweet with another one stating “#original.” They sent a cease and desist letter. LaBeouf tweeted the letter. But he then did cease and desist – by removing all the tweets from his account, although they subsequently reappeared after BuzzFeed broke the story.
LaBeouf’s January 1st skywriting apology over L.A. obviously hasn’t helped heal any wounds in the Clowes camp. What can LaBeouf have been thinking of this time? Was he trying to take the mickey out of the whole affair? Does this count as Twitter harassment? What can he – or his publicity handlers – have been smoking? Whatever it is, I want some. If it can make you this delusional, it must be potent stuff.
