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James Franco just doesn’t know when to stop with this “art” nonsense; quite frankly, his shtick has grown beyond old by now. Regardless, James now believes that even his ass is “art,” and his naked butt can be viewed on the cover of the latest issue of Flaunt magazine. No, we’re not going to actually expose anyone here to that horror (you’re welcome), but if you honestly want to witness James’ hairy booty, you can see it here. Meanwhile, the journalist who interviewed James is either playing along or truly enamored with the Franco butt:
James Franco’s ass stares at me from my desktop. it almost farts in my face. It feels like it wants to. Like it’s wanted to for weeks. But alas, this two-dimensional ass can’t blast any audible sass. It’s simply a photo, intended for our art cover–its gassy desires aren’t relevant. Of relevance is: how did we get here? How did Flaunt Magazine find itself a participant, throughout kept at an usual arm’s length, in the multiplicitous James Franco off-the-backlot artistry–what some amidst the fray might call an egoistic cluster-f*ck.
Egoistic? Absolutely. Just check out these excerpts of the interview within the magazine:
On Vulnerability As An Artist: I want to pull back the curtain, because what goes on behind the scenes is often more interesting and informative. We are so used to presenting films and art that are polished and impenetrable–they are well-crafted to the point that there is no messiness, and in some senses, not quite human. In our digital age, anything can be accomplished with the computer. Anything can look good. I want to show the little humans with their little messy feelings underneath all the polish. I want to show the humans at work, f***ing up, trying, doing the best they can with their less than perfect abilities. I also like to feel the material of the work. I don’t want the material to fade away. I am not trying to transport the viewer to a different place, and I want the viewer to be confronted by the form as well as the content. Because I come from the film world, I think a tighter connection is made between this work and my professional acting work. The commentary about the way we view mainstream film and art is stronger because of my place in the film business.
On The Shock Value Of “Art”: We are post-shock in a sense, but it all depends on context. Anything can be found on the internet, but when you take something that is familiar in one context and manipulate it, and put it in a new context, it can be a shock because it defies its former categorization. That is the kind of shock that I’m interested in–not shocking content, but defamiliarizing juxtapositions and redefinitions. I want to look underneath things, to show things in new lighting, in order make new sense of them.
On Whether His “Art” Is Meant To Confuse: I don’t think what I’m doing is confusing. It’s no more confusing than what Mathew Barney does, or Mike Kelley, or Paul McCarthy, or Sacha Baron Cohen. What is confusing is that I’m an actor in mainstream film and the people that usually comment on mainstream film are idiots, and they don’t try to think outside of their pop-culture commentaries. It’s so easy to criticize contemporary art from the outside: ‘Douglas Gordon slowed down Psycho so it’s 24-hours long? That’s easy! I can do that.’ That’s how the morons in the blogosphere try to critique my work. But the great thing about it is, is that their critiques are part of my work. I like that they are confused. I like that they make fun of what I’m doing. It’s a beautiful reflection of where our culture is at the moment.
On His Favorite Movie: Rebel Without a Cause has been endlessly studied, but our project is not a study as much as it is an exploration and expansion. We didn’t take an earnest look at the original film, and we didn’t do it from a stance in the film world. We looked at it through the art world lens in order to break it up, to look at the forces underneath it, to create with those forces. This is not a scholarly study or a celebration. It is using the original film as material for inspiration and as a connection to the history of Hollywood, mass entertainment, and mainstream Freudian thought.
[From Flaunt]
Yes, not only is everything “art” to Franco, but it’s also necessarily Freudian as well. Seriously, he doesn’t get how nauseating that his level of pretention really is, and I didn’t even get into the true nonsensical rants within the interview. The Franco-dictated photoshoot is even worse and features blow-up dolls, bongs, sex toys, and groups of scantily-clad hipsters gathered to imply both a schooling environment and a probable orgy. Juxtaposition, man. It’s so complicated that we couldn’t begin to understand it, right? Although I’ve featured a few images below, you’ll have to visit Flaunt for the rest.
Photos courtesy of Flaunt
Written by Bedhead
Posted in Delusional, James Franco
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- Married to Medicine recap [Reality Tea]
- Celebrity first marriages [Pajiba]
- The last Mad Men baffled a lot of people [Lainey]
- Karolina Kurkova’s crazy hot dress [Moe Jackson]
- Jennifer Garner on set [Popsugar]
- Kitten vs. Lizard [CDAN]
- Doetzen Kroes’ great butt [Celebslam]
- Shameless star Jeremy Allen White [OMG Blog]
- RIP Ray Manzarek [Bossip]
He’s so “deep”. LOL.
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Meh- my BF’s butt looks better; … so I guess that means tired.
But Im also not a butt girl 
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He is highly overrated. Jack of all trades and master of none.
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Aw. Come on, man, I really want to like you! Stop with the artiness and get a bit more humble. Or even better, just pose and smile.
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you’ve gotta stop hating on the franco. his ass and talents far surpass any of ours so let’s just accept that and move along.
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you’ve gotta stop hating on the franco. his ass and talents far surpass any of ours so let’s just accept that and move along.
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Over him.
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He might be talented above other actors but reading through the entire interview is so tedious. While Tilda Swinton’s interviews are endlessly fascinating, this pretentious I WENT TO FILM SCHOOL twat’s makes me want to throw him out a window.
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I still adore him and to top it off, he has a cute little booty.
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This beckons back to why I HATED cont. art theory class in college. I had to read essays where people literally made up their own words and spoke in circles. People like Franco speak “scholarly” in a way that degrades that very education.
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I just have to share this interview with James Franco’s ass in GAWKER hilarious!!!
http://gawker.com/interviews/
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I volunteer to spank JF’s ass and return him to sanity. You’re welcome, world.
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being humbel, nice, down to earth. that is SEXY.
not being akk about how much i am and blah blah blah
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I have to say, I think the word “art” is used way to liberally these days. He is not an artist.. he is just a little odd.
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If he didn’t come off like such an arse, I would actually applaud this: an actor publishing (what looks like) an unretouched picture of his ass is actually pretty funny, and COULD even be seen as honorable — again, if he wasn’t such a jerk about it.
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Ehh…I still like him. But that’s probably because I just don’t listen to half the sh*t he says.
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I think if he hadn’t accepted to present the Oscar in the same year he was being nominated, there would be less critiques now. It was just too much pressure to handle.
Anyways, I cannot judge on how he speaks of art, because I had my time when I would go over and over about the meaning and power of real literature. Sometimes you get really amazed with something you learn, and you feel like if you share that, people will love it too. And then you don’t realize that you are coming across as pretentious. About the kind of language he uses, I find it hard not to use scholar terms when I talk about something I am doing research on. You just get used to that language and incorporate it.
So I am not stating that this is his case, but he gets the benefit of the doubt. Besides, he is a very good actor, as I was positively surprised with him in 127 Hours.
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His head is so far up there I’m surprised we can’t see his nose poking out of that cover
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Well, it’s kind of nice (his ass).
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*shrug* He’s still handsome and a good actor. And honestly? Artists. There’s your problem. I’m an artist (a pencil artist and a painter) myself. Most of my friends go to art school. A friend of mine’s in theater school. Some of my buddies are dabbling in music. And some of my friends are plain ol’ normal people. From what I can say, people who truly are artistic at heart, are also SERIOUSLY FRIGGIN OBNOXIOUS at times. Including me. We can’t even help it. Not only are artistic types a bit strange by default, I admit, sometimes we really like riding that high horse.
So I’ll give him a break. I understand him. I condemn it, as I condemn it in myself, but I understand him.
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@ Grace. So nice to see another Franco supporter on cb lol. I love him. @18 (can’t see your name) As a big Franco fan, I still laughed my ass of at your comment. Bravo!
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Oh lordy. I have an ivy league PhD in the humanities, I love art and literature and have no problem with actual, genuine, genuinely interesting and thoughtful conversations on such topics. And I think his point about mainstream film presenting its product as glossy, impermeable, totally finished and complete is probably pretty legitimate (though not original, by any stretch). But… he still comes off as 100% pretentious, and why on earth he needs to flash his ass to make some point or other about art, I have no clue. Dude, go away.
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I like James Franco appearance, I think he is totally bangable, but this whole artistic scrap ever since he’s been on twitter is annoying! Yes I think he is highly overrated and I never saw the James Dean comparison but I think he and his brother are fine ass hell!
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lame.
the poptarts have nothing on this famewhore…
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Ugh. I went to a Fine Art College. This all sounds like all the under-grad art student dribble. They are all so DEEP. Get thee over thy self Franco.
I do think he is an adequate actor but I just can’t give him money at the theater if he’s going to continue this pretention.
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He’s so Deep… He calls it ART. haha what a major douce. The only thing that is “deep” is his ego, filled with BS he could hardly recognize that his Ultimate hipster mustache is mainstream.
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it can’t be tired because it was never fresh, funny and cute in the first place. just an average hipster idiot trying hard. nothing to see here, move along.
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he’s such a wannabe. yuck.
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He should have shaved first.
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-Head smacks desk- He never ceases to amaze me …
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He’s great!
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I mostly find him charming except for when he’s talking about ART. THen he goes off to some other plane that makes people roll their eyes. Still, his intelligence impresses me, and James is a cutie.
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My word, he keeps attaining new heights — or should I say lows — of pretentiousness.
At least the cover shot represents Franco’s essence accurately, quite literally making him the butt of jokes for years to come. (Pun intended, LOL.)
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I had a dream that we were good friends, and he was so charming and sweet that I woke up with a huge crush on him. Cute booty too.
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Way too pretentious. A few weeks in the real world would do him a lot of good.
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I think he’s talented, and I do think he’s hot…but yeah he comes off a bit douche-y. Too bad.
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Still think he’s hot.
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The ass art is appropriate, considering how impossibly full of shit he is.
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“…or Paul McCarthy, or Sacha Baron Cohen.”
*snigger*
God, he is so pretentious.
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*face palm*
*giggle*
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hmm i posted a comment about how stupid he looks in his photos, how he probably thinks he’s super cute and awkward and interesting and that it probably didn’t work on any girls except for the star fuckers. and that he’s untalented in everything he pretends to do and the douchey academy awards he presented was the worst ever and that’s saying something. it wasn’t posted for some reason but you know it’s all true.
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yawn….
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