29 June 2007

On 15 June 2007, The New York Times published Alan Feuer’s article, “Going to Court Over Fiction by a Fictitious Writer”.  This is, of course, about Laura Albert, the writer who took a cue from The Associate and countless other Hollywood formulas and created a fictitious alter ego, JT Leroy.  On 23 June 2007, the New York Post published Jennifer Fermino’s article, “Books Thrown At ‘LeRoy’: Fraud author must pay”.  In Fermino’s article, she states that Albert explained away her fraud as “survival” and because of being “an overweight, sexually abused child teased for being like the cartoon character Fat Albert”.  At the end, Albert states, “This is a dangerous, brave new world”, as if to wax profound.

Abuse is one thing.  Creativity and triumph over that abuse is a marvelous achievement and empowering testament to the amazing power of resiliency.  Abuse as an excuse or justification for psycho-pathology and flagrant fraud is quite another matter.  Now I concede that sometimes the unfortunate reaction to abuse by the not-so-resilient victim is pathological behaviour of one form or another – latent or immediate, it is an unfortunate reaction.  However, when abuse is used as an excuse to choose deliberately manipulative and illegal actions that hurt others is not only completely unacceptable, but also a slap in the face to those who really have suffered abuse. 

The infuriating thing about Albert’s mis-actions is that it all seems to be a joke or rather, a Hollywood drama: pulling off an alter ego and schmooze with celebrities to fool the world and make good money while doing so.  Furthermore, to state it is a “dangerous, brave new world” as if to wax profound only makes her look all the more foolish, superficial, and downright pathetic.  She is but an ersatz doppelganger of a writer, a dried-up actor trying play the part of a writer to a failing degree.  She is an offense to all those who were abused as children and to all those who were bullied for appearing outside the accepted ‘norm’. 

Hyphenation is an offshoot of a marginalized perspective, from eyes that were forced to look askew because of the way the world pushed this viewer to the curved margins.  Seeking and finding empowerment and transcendence in that empowerment is the key to ‘tapping into’ potentiality that is hyphenation proper. 

Everyone has potentiality, limited only to creativity.  To use weakness in perpetuation of what weakens and harms others is a theft to us all and a leap backwards to the collective creative genius.

Given a choice between empowerment and defeat, why not choose your own success?