Comments | thepropagandist: my pal bullshit

thepropagandist

my pal bullshit

Feb 24, 2006 23:03

So I just found out today that JT Leroy, a twentysomething ex-male-hustler/teen runaway from West Virginia who was among my favorite authors for awhile, is actually a middle-aged, middle-class mother from Brooklyn looking to promote her band. The story begins with this article, which does some investigation but doesn't fully prove it; this was ( Read more... )

Comments 2

Well, at least it can't be said that I never respond to your journal...=) tabloidscully March 4 2006, 20:07:11 UTC

As someone who read the James Frey memoir and really took his recovery to heart, I was extremely angry when I found out it wasn't a memoir at all but an embellished truth at best and a flat-out fabrication at worst, because I believed in the author and I believed in what he was telling me. Although I've never even used drugs, I related so well to what he wrote, because I empathized with his pain. The illness of addiction is not unlike the illness of depression, or even the illness of borderline personality disorder (ignoring for a moment, the inaccuracy of the diagnosis). To an extent, I even internalized it on-par with my rape, especially at the part where the drug-addicted heroine reveals her first sexual experience was a thirteen-year-old prostitute.

However, if I forego the sentimentality, I am also incredibly irate at being lied to. Having been a journalist for nearly six years (admittedly not a professional) I am vested in discovering the truth and have always had a particular taste for memoirs. In fact, ellimist and I were just ( ... )

Re: Well, at least it can't be said that I never respond to your journal...=) thepropagandist March 4 2006, 21:04:23 UTC

Exactly: I can't stand it when people claim that inventing an entire personality with whom the audience strongly sympathizes, and NOT for purely artistic reasons but in a way that dupes even the "artist"'s presumed close friends, as in the JT Leroy situation, is, "like, totally awesome and stuff." It's just a huge and callous manipulation of some deep-seated emotions, not to mention committing the extremely dishonorable act of lying to friends (and fans who may have actually gone through some of the same experiences ( ... )