# Is David Blaine asking to be abused? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 15, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779 "2003-09-15T18:59:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/101 "2003-09-18T12:54:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by fizzygoodmakefeelnice \* > \*\*Poor sausage. \*\* Chipolata? ---
**Author:** ![kabbes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e99b99/32.png) [@kabbes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kabbes)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/102 "2003-09-18T13:21:58Z")
Yes snookums? ---
**Author:** ![feistyALgal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@feistyALgal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/feistyALgal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/103 "2003-09-18T14:33:32Z")
He’s a total attention ho. You don’t give a crack ho more crack and then complain she’s a crack ho. But that’s what the British people are doing. They’re giving him attention then whining that he’s an attention ho. I just don’t see what he’s trying to ACCOMPLISH. That he can stay alive? Big deal. He put himself in the situation. It’s not like he was stranded suddenly in a snowstorm or something and had to ‘regroup’ or anything. He’s been planning this for a while. I like his street magic. He seems like an interesting character. But this latest stunt is just plain… PLAIN. He doesn’t deserve to be pelted with stuff, but if people are thoroughly disgusted by him, the worst they can do is IGNORE him – as like someone pointed out, he’s an attention whore. Throwing things at him reinforces to him that people still care that he’s in that box. If the British were smart about this, they’d go about their day as if there’s no big box dangling anywhere with a goofball inside it. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/104 "2003-09-18T15:11:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by feistyALgal \* > **They’re giving him attention then whining that he’s an attention ho.** Hey, _we’re_ not the ones doing the whining (check the nationality of the OP, please). We’re the ones laughing at him, and we’re being asked to explain ourselves. Which we’re doing. Couldn’t give a bollocks whether he’s getting off on it or not. Please don’t misrepresent what’s happening here. ---
**Author:** ![pierre72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b2d939/32.png) [@pierre72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pierre72)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/105 "2003-09-18T15:15:19Z")
> [@](#): > > If the British were smart about this, they’d go about their day as if there’s no big box dangling anywhere with a goofball inside it. But, see… there IS a bix box dangling in a _very_ prominent position with a goofball inside it… it’s almost magnetic. It attracts idiots. Nothing wrong with being an idiot. We can’t ignore him. If we ignore him, he may complete his task, and go home hailed as a hero. If, however, someone puts him off, makes him break his fast, make him fail, they may get on the telly. Oh, don’t look so shocked. That’s the only reason Blaine’s doing it. After all, if this was a “spiritual” thing for him, why not head off into the Australian outback for a month and a half? Why not forego the $7m in TV rights? Why do it at a major tourist attraction with a live webcam and regular daily live updates on national TV? You need to understand the British psyche - by which I mean the psyche of those “idiots”. I’m guessing they watch a lot of British youth-oriented comedy TV. On such British TV, we tend to take the piss out of our celebrities. (Someone mentioned the reverence we have for the Beckhams. I assure you, it’s only for David, and it’s only since he became English football captain. And even then, he’s portrayed as being thick as two short planks. Erm, in other words, stoopid). One such programme which - rightly or wrongly - purports this kind of ethos is “Bo Selecta”… a Channel 4 “comedy” programme featuring rubber-faced caricatures of popular celebrities - Scary Spice as a Yorkshire hag, Michael Jackson doing “Michael Jackass”, and David Blaine as a pervy street magician who uses “magic” as an excuse to come on to attractive young ladies (which I was sure was an exaggeration until I saw a recent repeat of his Street Magic, and he _does_ spend quite some time touching young ladies…) The common perception of David Blaine purported by these programmes - both the comedy, and to a lesser extent, and in the light of the comedy, his own - is not that he is a mystic, but that he carries an over-inflated sense of his own self-importance. Is it art? We have a proud tradition of desecrating that, too… see the guy who poured black ink into Damien Hurst’s Sheep-in-Formaldehyde creation. Right? Probably not. Funny? Probably. Art in its own right?? Maybe? Who’s to say the egg-chuckers aren’t conceptual artists in their own right, postmodernising Blaine’s work of “art”? Chucking an egg at his cage is not physical assault. He is not being hurt (ego aside). It’s lampooning the pompous. What was the phrase above? “Pricking the bubble of pomposity.” I’m taking that one. ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/106 "2003-09-18T15:35:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by feistyALgal \* > \*\* > If the British were smart about this, they’d go about their day as if there’s no big box dangling anywhere with a goofball inside it. \*\* Or we could get a bunch of gay geezers to fling cocktails at him ---
**Author:** ![owlstretchingtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/958977/32.png) [@owlstretchingtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/owlstretchingtime)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779/107 "2003-09-18T15:41:39Z")
Actually that’s get a bunch of gay geezers in leather to fling cocktail sausages at him. Pricks that balloon pretty well I’d say. Next up I want a bunch of nuns to moon him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-david-blaine-asking-to-be-abused/201779.md?page=5)