Released in the spring of 2002, the first film in the Bumfights series would prove quite a profitable commodity, punching its way into the cultural zeitgeist while branding the filmmakers as manipulative violence mongers. Remember Bumfights, the deeply depressing 2002 video featuring homeless men goaded into doing stupid things like fighting each other and getting "Bumfights" tattoos? Anyway, McPherson and Tanner were questioned by police for a few hours before being released, and have since traveled on to Cambodia. The debut release titled Bumfights Vol. The theme of the episode was 'hate crimes against the . download 1 file . Contrary to its title, the video does not depict homeless men actually fighting, but instead a compilation of street fights caught on tape and homeless men performing in skits and stunts. In the book, the cousins refer to each other by the nicknames Sopy and BP. They break Brennan and Hannah out of the quarters where theyre being held when an Indecline guard named James abandons his post to get some food. (Brennan and Hannah had signed releases for Bumfights, stripping their rights to compensation for use of their likenesses. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. It started in 2002 and features homeless and teenagers fighting and doing stunts in exchange for cash. ), In early 2003, all the felony charges against McPherson, Tanner, Slyman and Bubeck were either dropped or reduced to misdemeanors. McPherson says he used a portion of the revenue he earned from Bumfights to pay for their housing, cigarettes and food, a move he thought more prudent than writing them a royalty check that he worried theyd blow on booze. [deleted] Photo credit: Jim Baird/ZUMA, Subversion Gone Wrong: Inside Bumfights, Why New Yorks Underground Weed Market Isnt Going Anywhere. You must be at least 18 years old and you must agree that you are not offended by mature content to view this group. )Go tell Bum #1 that Bum #2 was the guy responsible for putting him on the street and that he stole the last little bit of Thunderbird, and his last cigarette filter, you know, the one that has 3 to 4 grains of tobacco on it. The original Indecline members could not reveal the buyers true names due to a non-disclosure agreement, and multiple reports on the pair who did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story concluded they were utilizing aliases in the media. Is New York City Really Cracking Down on Weed Sellers? But few players in the Bumfights tale believe the film would have such reverberations through the zeitgeist of today. Topics. bum fights Easy to start: 1.) Its like jackass but instead of friends pranking each other, you go do it to homeless people without asking if they're down for it. Filed to: where are they now Remember Bumfights, the deeply depressing 2002 video featuring homeless men goaded into doing stupid things like fighting each other and getting "Bumfights". For more information, please see our Tsu Surf Pleads Guilty to RICO, Firearms Charges You'd walk past the bay area and just throw a dollar at a bum and just point at another and they know what's up. Tanner and McPherson are not to be confused with the Bumfights producer who got kicked off Dr. Phil when he showed up dressed as Dr. Phil. But they were super chaotic and violent and full of drugs and prostitutes and shit. Saddened by the loss of Hannah, Soper, followed by a local news camera, placed a bouquet of flowers at the dumpster where he says the two first met in the late 1990s. with image of children struggling for sticky buns. The creator of the show defended himself, saying that he was actually helping people. 6 Favorites. Cookie Notice Bumfights 3 The Felony Footage. Jonathon Green, The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (1984) offers a bit of a twist on that definition: bunfight n. a tea party, esp. The debut release titled Bumfights Vol. I can see how easy it is to look at the situation and scream exploitation, McPherson says of his time filming homeless people, namely Brennan and Hannah. There are no featured reviews for Bumfights: Cause for Concern because the movie has not released yet (). That was Ty Beeson, an investor to whom McPherson and Co sold their rights, and about whom McPherson reportedly said, in an interview no longer online, they were extorting us and doing a bunch of shady sh*t.. Such incidents, according to Brennan, were what prompted Hannah to call Barry Soper, a San Diego businessman who had once hired the duo to perform maintenance work for a few weeks at a residential development he owned. During a deposition for a civil suit Brennan, Hannah and another homeless man filed against McPherson years later, Hannah said that McPherson, shortly after meeting him, offered him $5 to head-butt a stack of milk crates on camera. . That event, featured on the DVD, along with another in which Brennan got BUMFIGHT tattooed across his forehead, became centerpieces in a 2002 criminal lawsuit filed by the Superior Court of California against the Indecline crew. In September 2002, the Bumfights Krew were arrested on seven felony charges for paying homeless people to fight. He calls his cousin a saint, saying Soper was helping people who were used and abused and paid to do horrible things.. on the Internet. Kim Fowley's Estate Sued for Sexual Assault of Minor. Bum Fights. The creator of Bum Fights appeared on the Dr. Phil Show today ( December 12, 2006) on an episode about media controversy. Search the history of over 806 billion After playing some snippets from the Bumfights videos to the audience, Dr. Phil stated that he was disgusted and kicked the Bumfights representative off even before the interview started, with security removing Beeson from the stage. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. They decided to combine their risqu footage into an hourlong DVD compilation, inspired by Jackass but with added shock value. However, with Rufus, I was always proud of him, McPherson says. Annahoward. But when I do I'll drop a link to one of their segments. People were coming up to me, telling me theres a homeless guy running his head into trees, McPherson says, referring to Hannah. [1], By June 2002, 250,000 copies of the first volume of the series were reported sold for $22 each, according to Wired magazine. After the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Indecline painted a mural memorializing the victims and protesting gun laws. He hired them again. Both men, whod struggled with alcoholism for years, were recognizable in the area, a quiet place the two sought out after briefly living on the streets of San Diego. RT25: Celebrating 25 years of Rotten Tomatoes. Everyday id watch the same shit on tv and youtube. He even claimed to be providing a service and filling a need for people who crave violence and want to see violence against homeless people. Regardless, it was the first of many acts performed by homeless people that McPherson taped most prolifically with Hannah, memorialized in his films as Rufus the Stunt Bum.. Wife wanted a divorce and I was so very close to losing my job at work. McPherson, who makes a living as a freelance creative director, will never get the chance to mend fences with his one-time homeless buddy Hannah, though. But the prosecutions side of the case, as it turned out, was kind of hard to piece together, Ross explains, noting that his witnesses had built-in credibility issues. Dr. Phil has made his career putting people in tough and often embarrassing situations, so when Ty Beeson, the creator, and director of the infamous Bum Fights, dressed up as the doc when appearing on his show, Dr. Phil didn't take it too well. In the late 1990s, when Ryen McPherson was a teenager living in the idyllic San Diego suburb of La Mesa, California, he met two middle-aged homeless men named Donnie Brennan and Rufus Hannah.. Bumfights 1, 2, and 3. [2] Community complaints led to the police investigating if any laws were broken by producers. The video series immediately garnered criticism. To go from living that much of a desperate life to being someone whos a national spokesperson, traveling around the country, talking to legislators and colleges about homelessness and alcoholism to me, that shows great courage., Brennan tells Rolling Stone that, before Hannahs death, the two were tighter than the Lone Ranger and Tonto., He was beyond a nice guy, Brennan also said of Hannah. That was a really big day, Tanner tells Rolling Stone. Topics bumfights, bum, fights, streetfights. web pages See Also During the mass shooting there in October 2017, Slyman says, members were live-streaming the chaos from their phones and posted scanner feeds. Hannah agreed because he was drunk, he said, and wanted the money to buy more beer. Uploaded by To optimize visceral consumer reaction to the product, they called it Bumfights. 'Bun fight' in slang dictionaries. Bumfights might be an outrageous but forgettable one-day fad in 2018, netting scant cash for its creators. SUCH A SAD WORLD WE LIVE IN NOW. the second instalment in the Bumfights series, and it's just a bad as the first one - if not worse; viewing caution is strong advised! I cant believe youre living like that, she wrote to Hannah. 1: A Cause for Concern features primarily high school fights caught on tape and homeless men (most notably Rufus Hannah and Donnie Brennan) in the San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas attempting amateur stunts in a style inspired by the popular MTV series Jackass. web pages It was produced by Ryen McPherson, with friends Zachary Bubeck, Daniel J. Tanner, and Michael Slyman, as Indecline Films. BUMFIGHTS VOL. In 2005, McPherson and Zachary Bubek were sentenced to 180 days in jail for failing to complete their community service. But by then, Indecline had sold the rights to Bumfights for a reported $1.5 million to two Las Vegas producers, who began promoting the film under the pseudonyms Ray Leticia and Ty Beeson. McPherson disagrees. People were finding their family members.It was pretty fucking crazy. He also permitted public fundraising pages benefiting the victims families to be posted in the group, and adds that he has organized bottled-water drives on behalf of the homeless during Vegas hot summer months. He hung out with Brennan and Hannah one day behind a supermarket, where the two would cash in recyclable cans theyd found. They told Wired they wished to use Bumfights proceeds to one day fund a legitimate film, and BBC News noted they were marketing the video as an opportunity to witness drunk bums beating each other silly. McPherson and Slyman believe it was an associate of Leticia and Beesons who infamously appeared on Dr. Phil, posing as the Bumfights creator. According to a Georgia State Patrol investigator, an 18-wheeler ran a red light and crashed into the passenger side of the car, killing Hannah instantly. I gave Rufus my business card and said, If you ever get in trouble you call me, says Soper, now 73 and still living in San Diego. Instead, McPherson characterizes those funds as helpful dollars given to friends in need. Well, the guy exploits homeless people for profit. Archived post. TOBYLMAO Brennan and Hannah sometimes coaxed each other into performing stunts of their own, mostly because people liked us and we were kidding around, Brennan, 70, tells Rolling Stone. I flew out to Las Vegas and met my cousin and told him we have to rescue Rufus and Donnie, Soper says. The evidence they submitted didnt satisfy the judge, who sentenced them each to 180 days in prison. Cookie Notice Bum fights producer exploits homeless people. I think they fell in the camp of just normal, good kids that made some bad decisions [and did] some pretty cruel things regarding getting the homeless guys drunk and having them hurt each other.. Eight years sober, Hannah explains how a lifelong addiction to alcohol brought him to becoming an unwitting gladiator for twisted teens. He still insists McPherson supplied alcohol as payment for filming Brennan and Hannahs potentially injurious stunts. canaanp 3 yr. ago We had a lot of friends in La Mesa., Brennan says Hannah once dared him to jump off a hill near the entrance of La Mesita Park, and land on the concrete below. He lives in a room at a sober-living home that supports people in recovery in San Diego. SlitScan Additional comment actions or his staff hates him as much as everyone else. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. (McPherson denies that ever happened.) The body parts were stolen from the medical museums of one of Bangkok's biggest hospitals, its administrators said late Monday. Hell Jackass ripped off . "You're ruining our canning route," Hannah snapped back. There was the time he spent with me, and the time he spent with his attorneys, and he wouldnt look me in the eye, McPherson says. 1: A Cause for Concern features primarily high school fights caught on tape and homeless men (most notably Rufus Hannah and Donnie Brennan) in the San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas attempting amateur stunts in a style inspired by the popular MTV series Jackass. No.. But Brennan tells Rolling Stone it was McPherson who instructed Hannah to slug him!, I went to turn around, because I didnt want him to hit me again, Brennan continues, and thats when my ankle snapped in half.. Much of that is thanks to Soper, who helped Hannah write a bookhence the renewed interestcalled A Bum Deal, about Hannah's life and his work as an advocate for the homeless (he's currently trying to get legislation passed that would regard crimes against the homeless as hate crimes). Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. With Tenor, maker of GIF Keyboard, add popular Bum Fights animated GIFs to your conversations. Man talk about funny! 2,442 Views . We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us! Bum fights. And then one day I get a call from Rufus saying, Barry, you have to get your ass out here, I think theyre going to kill us. . The two met next to a dumpster, according to the Union-Tribune: Soper, 65, doesn't usually pay much attention to his trash receptacles, but someone had defecated next to this particular one a day earlier, so he was watchful. underground VHS tapes of hooded graffiti taggers bombing in New York City, also heavily consumed back in the early 2000s, reshaped the vinyl into standalone shelters, mural memorializing the victims and protesting gun laws, CIA Director, Noam Chomsky Named in Epstein's Private Calendar: Report, Drake, Will Arnett Celebrate Toronto Maple Leafs' (Long-Awaited) Postseason Triumph, Meet the YouTube Creator Busting Crypto Scams, Twitter to Allow Media Publishers to Charge Per Article, Want to Make Cash As a Creator? The rage against McPherson and Indecline was tapped into again for an episode of 60 Minutes that aired in October 2006. Jackass would skip to the big screen with its own feature film. Brennan went down hard, with an awkward twist, and soon began complaining about pain in his right leg. (He says the $90,000 he saw from the civil suit paid for necessities like rent, food and clothing for five years.) McPherson adds that through the years hes been disappointed in Brennan because for so long he refused to turn his life around the way Hannah did. McPherson and Indecline partner Tanner drove to an abandoned Taco Bell in La Mesa to catch up with Brennan and Hannah and film them, as theyd been doing periodically for about two years. The plaintiffs claimed their civil rights had been violated in the making of Bumfights. According to Soper, McPherson and his Indecline partners kidnapped Brennan and Hannah, holding them against their will in Las Vegas, with plans to film more vile Bumfights scenes. H.264 IA download. I went to turn around, because I didnt want him to hit me again, Brennan says. I think [their conduct] should have been held accountable at the felony level, Ross says, but the judge at the preliminary hearing felt differently.. Bumfights. 2. They do the same thing to different demographics. But the Bumfights legacy would continue to follow McPherson, Slyman, Tanner and Bubeck for years, with their names boldly appearing in both headlines and court documents. Unknown Dr. Phil, on the other hand, acts like he is dispensing real life advice when all he does is yell at people and say they'll "get help" at one of his resort rehabs. See Movies in Theaters. They certainly did not expect Bumfights to have either the sales success it had or its quaked cultural impact. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Police Col. Chumpol Poompuang said the sender was a 31-year-old. McPherson, an aspiring filmmaker, was always tooling around town with a video camera. ), When asked if he held Brennan and Hannah captive, McPherson says, They had fuckin house keys. When asked about Sopers role in the story, McPherson says, I wont discredit the guy for helping [them]. But he also implies that Sopers had financial-based motives, adding, Theres also something about the amount of money involved in all this, and how quickly people go to help when there are, allegedly, millions of dollars [floating around the project].. The Stunt Bum barely walked away with his life. Uploaded by The first video, "Bum Fights," grossed over six million dollars in one month, and those recently produced continue to bring in profit at the "expense of the homeless people . When presented with the paperwork in his civil-trial deposition, Hannah said he couldnt remember signing it. According to Ross, the videos were a last-minute submission into evidence, allowed by the judge without the prosecution having the chance to examine them. web pages After the debut of Survivor the number-one rated show in 2001, itself teeming with unsettling imagery, like the infamous trapped-rat-eating episode viewers were so starved for reality-based programming that by the end of 2003, American Idol, The Bachelor and Joe Millionaire would join Survivor near the top of the TV ratings charts. Leticia and Beeson publicly claimed they were the original masterminds behind the project.
Categorías