JT Leroy

she's just like Andy Kaufman!" cult yet

― marmotwolof, Sunday, 24 June 2007 18:30 (nine years ago)

I gather the woman behind the whole thing has made a new documentary claiming just that about herself, at least by implication. Also that she recorded everyone's calls without their permission. Figure she's about to be in for a new world of legal hurt.

My girlfriend Kate and I just watched the other documentary that came out a year ago, The Cult of JT Leroy -- choppy at points but definitely a good portrait of a pretty fucked up situation. As much a portrayal of wanting to be part of the in crowd as anything else. As I said to Kate at one point, "Who was starfucking who here?" (Meantime the couple of telling clips from people who live and struggle through Leroy's supposed stomping grounds are telling in turn.)

The various posts at the start of the thread are definitely bemusing.

I only vaguely knew of this saga when it was happening/was revealed, but I really enjoyed her interview on WTF a week or so ago.

i LOVED this latest documentary. i don't really care how much laura albert says is true or not, i found the whole thing fascinating.

it was weird to me how identical her and savannah's voices/fake accents were. i wanted to know more about the relationship between them - how was laura conducting all these relationships over the phone, while savannah was maintaining them in person?? i had a general idea of the story before watching the doc, but no clue that the whole thing went on for like a decade - i was under the impression it had lasted maybe a year or so.

and all the recordings of conversations... THAT WAS FUCKING WEIRD. she recorded everything?? did the doc get permission from the people on the other end of the line to use those clips? i really wanted to here from more celebrities who were convinced j.t. was a real live person. i wanted to know what holes in the story people picked up on throughout those 10 years.

and laura's son! i wanted to know how he felt about all this.

i only watched like 30 mins of this and bailed, maybe will revisit sometime, but my impression was maybe some of the recorded converstions were genuine but some struck me that they seemed reconstructed for the doc idk i could be wrong

There was one taped convo where she was breaking up with her husband that I was a bit dubious about

i liked the doc but yeah i would have loved to hear more from savannah and the husband about their perspectives

maybe the recordings are part of the ongoing jt leroy mystique project
(that's what i was thinking when i wondered the same thing about them)

Yeah I started to wonder if they were just reenactments bit but they sounded real. So many questions.

did the doc get permission from the people on the other end of the line to use those clips?

Nope.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/movies/asia-argento-and-others-are-angry-about-being-in-jt-leroy-documentary.html