Five Alternative Uses for "Conversion Therapy"

Give the gay teens a break. It's time to focus on Danzig.

by Mike Moreau

California Governor Jerry Brown recently made California the first state to outlaw "conversion therapy" for gay teens, the controversial process designed to "convert" teens from gay to straight. Luckily, we thought of some subjects who would be better served by the powerful, totally spurious process of conversion therapy.

1. Keeping Teenage Boys From Thinking Charles Bukowski is Charming

Everyone goes through a Bukowksi period. Some people don't ever come out. We're proposing a groundbreaking twelve-week treatment that would stop people from finding aggressively misogynistic, misanthropic, and frankly, kind of boring writing so damn interesting.

Sample Therapeutic Technique: Forced to read their own writing out loud. Any out-of-place reference to the Post Office, smoking, drinking, fighting, or promiscuous sex with no narrative function will be rewarded with a bucketful of cold water to the face.

 

2. Getting Andre 3000 Back into OutKast

We were willing to give Andre 3000 plenty of time to be as idiosyncratic and be-hatted as he wanted, and we were weathering the storm of Big Boi's solo albums with what we felt was considerable aplomb. But now it's been twelve (!) years since the last "true" OutKast album (that would be Stankonia, since Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was pretty much two solo records packaged together), and that is really bumming us out.

Sample Therapeutic Technique: Subject will be allowed to pursue whatever acting projects he chooses, but will be forced to do so — and make all public appearances — clad entirely in clothing from Wal-Mart's Faded Glory line.

 

3. Helping Shia LaBeouf accept himself

Depending on how you feel about Shia LaBeouf, it's pretty clear that he either a) doesn't like himself, or b) has some serious identity problems. He does stuff like like have actual sex for Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, eat acid for a role, get drunk in the woods for Lawless, and pull his guy out for that bizarre Sigur Rós video (not necessarily the actions of a self-loather, but clearly a cry for help). We propose using conversion therapy to turn LaBeouf from an dysfunctional, possibly dangerous weirdo taking unnecessary and dramatic steps to distinguish himself as a "serious actor," and into a normal person, who takes acting classes and maybe studies with a coach.

Sample Therapeutic Technique: Lots of hugs.

 

4. Turning Christopher Nolan onto comedy

Christopher Nolan is one of the biggest names in cinema today, but the second his name pops up in the credits, you can be sure of a few things: the film will be relentlessly dour and sexless, and it will feature moral shadings that are reductive and simplistic to everyone over the age of seventeen. He's a talented filmmaker, to be sure, but if anyone needs to be sent in the opposite direction of their current creative headspace, it's Nolan.

Sample Therapeutic Technique: Dosed with LSD and forced to watch the collected works of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and '80s screwball comedy auteur "Savage" Steve Holland.

 

5. Finally getting Glenn Danzig to lighten up

Unlike hardcore punk's other most prominent neck, Henry Rollins, Glenn Danzig has never displayed anything resembling a sense of humor. Whether it's challenging other band members to fight in the studio, cleaning up his motherfucking bricks, or pitching a tantrum over French onion soup, Danzig is the epitome of a sullen, humorless clod. But we have the cure.

Sample Therapeutic Technique: Locked in a puppy-and-kitten-filled room perpetually lit with the soft light of dawn and and outfitted with speakers that will play Brian Eno's Music for Airports at soothing volumes.

Alternative Therapeutic Technique: Dosed with LSD and forced to watch the collected works of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and '80s screwball comedy auteur "Savage" Steve Holland.