The Surprising Reason for the New Homophobia

Long ago, the bright-eyed Disney Channel star Shia LaBeouf entered adulthood and set about to become a great man. He studied method acting; he worked with edgy directors; he groaned and screamed like Al Pacino. But those ambitious days are now a distant memory. LaBeouf hasn’t anchored a box-office hit in more than a decade, and little of his 2020s art-house work has drawn buzz. The most notable thing he’s starred in lately was a clip of him on a podcaster’s couch, hunched and diminished, talking about his fear of gay people.