Fawning, puff-piece pop star documentaries like Justin Bieber’s Believe (by the way Justin, ‘believe’ called, it wants its status as a verb back) rarely touch on the more troubled aspects of their subjects’ life stories, unless they can be easily milked for pathos like Katy Perry’s divorce from Russell Brand was in Part of Me. So I was surprised to see Bieber’s infamous ‘I’ll fucking beat the fuck out of you’ outburst from March of this year (see above) pop up in the trailer for Believe.
The relevant portion is at 1:08 if you can’t stomach the whole thing…
Personally, finding out how on Earth the producers of Believe are going to cast the footage (in which Justin limply threatens to beat the fuck out of a huge burly man from behind two large bodyguards) in a positive light, is reason enough for me to buy a ticket for the film when it bops its way into UK cinemas next year. Presumably they’ll bleep out the expletives (‘fuck off back to America’ has already become ‘[mumble] back to America’) but what are they going to do about the general embarrassment and awkwardness of the whole spectacle?
So many questions remain unanswered. What painfully glib life lesson will be tacked onto the end of the sequence? What will Justin learn from it?
And perhaps more importantly, where will Justin learn from it?
Oh right, in his head. Thanks for clearing that up, Justin.