Joseph Gordon-Levitt turned the tables on a pair of paparazzi in the following video, which he has titled “Pictures of Assholes” and the two cameramen respond as you would expect, one referring to himself as “Asshole” when Gordon-Levitt asks his name and the other as “Asshole Jr.” So, for the sake of this post we will oblige just as JGL did.
My favorite part of the video comes around 1:15 mark when Gordon-Levitt says, “You know, if you ask me nicely and said, ‘Hey, how yah doin’? My name’s… Good to see you, can I take some shots of you?’ It would be kind of different than just running up and –”
He is then interrupted by “Asshole Jr.” who says, “I don’t think that’s ever been done before in the history of… ever since La Dolce Vita. Ssss… Who directed that?”
Gordon-Levitt says, “Fellini.”
“Asshole Jr.” asks, “Who?” and Gordon-Levitt cuts to the next “scene”. I love it!
Featured below the video is Gordon-Levitt’s description and ironically enough, by posting this I’m only confirming I’m part of the problem… right?
It doesn’t normally happen that paparazzi photographers pay me any attention when I’m not working. In fact, it only ever happened once (thank god) that I can think of. Luckily I had my video camera on me when it did. A friend and I were just walking down the street in Manhattan when we passed these two photographers who were sitting outside the entrance of some hotel, presumably waiting to photograph somebody who was staying there. I didn’t think much of them until, a block or so later, they came running up and started to take my picture. I tried to be nice and politely ask them not to. They were neither nice nor polite. And that’s when I remembered I had my camera in my bag. So that’s where the movie starts. The only other thing I’ll say is (and I had trouble deciding whether or not to be so blunt with my opinion, but here goes) I do believe that the myth of “Celebrity” is not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a powerful and fundamental part of a larger movement revolving around greed, apathy and hierarchy that is currently dragging us down, down, down, lower and scarier, and perhaps weaker than we’ve ever, ever been. Smile!
