Glitch Art: Robert Downey Jr.

When I first began thinking of who to showcase in my Glitch Art project, celebrities that experienced "glitches" in their lives were the only people coming to mind.  By this I mean stars who took and turn for the worst, maybe with drugs or alcohol, and fell from grace.  Divas like Lindsey Lohan or Amanda Bynes both experienced these rough patches and have not yet recovered.  However, I then thought how Glitch Art is about taking something that would normally be considered a problem or malfunction, and turning it into a piece of creative beauty.  I wanted a celebrity that worked through his or her "glitch" and came back as something better, and Robert Downey Jr. was the first that came to mind.

As a young actor, Robert Downey Jr's career started out very promising.  From making his first big-screen debut at the age of five, to being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor after his role as Charlie Chaplin in 1992, it was safe to say the boy's career was going places.  That being said, it was soon clear that Robert was not strong enough to avoid the path that too many child stars have gone down.   In 1996, Downey was ordered by the court to attend a 45-day program for cocaine and heroin addicts, with headlines labeling him as the "Most recent casualty of Hollywood's Heroin Resurgence."  It seemed to the world that what could have been a promising acting career was flushed down the toilet once again at the hand of drugs.  But Robert wasn't like the others, and in 2000, he was released from the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison and went to join the cast of the TV series Ally McBeal.  He proceeded forward to do many other films including Tropic Thunder, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Today he is most well known for his role as Iron Man in both the first and second movie as well as in the Avengers.  I find this to be quite a beautiful metaphor for his life, because although he went through a "glitch," he over came it and is now a real life Iron Man, stronger than ever.