“A horrible human”: deconstructing the mythology of Steven Seagal
Who is Steven Seagal? He’s been called a lot of things by a lot of people during his career, but the worst person to ask for an explanation is probably the man himself, given that there have always been holes in the carefully curated mythology he’s built over the years.
Based on his filmography, he was a short-lived mainstream concern that eventually settled into a rhythm of straight-to-video mediocrity. According to a number of lawsuits and legal filings, he’s a repeated sexual harasser. Ask Gene LeBell, and the martial arts legend would tell anyone that Seagal is the guy who passed out and shit his pants when he tried to prove his toughness and was placed in a chokehold, which he denies, of course.
Quiz John Leguizamo, and he’ll say, “He’s kind of a horrible human.” Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels will happily brand him the worst guest host the long-running sketch comedy has ever had. There are plenty of opinions on Seagal, but not many of them are positive. However, he’s still tried very hard to create an aura that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny very well at all.
In a 1990 interview with People, when he was at his peak in Hollywood, he described himself as a “street kid” the local youths were afraid of because they saw him as “some kind of crazy gangster”. That was swiftly debunked by his own mother, who labelled him as “a puny kid” who was physically frail and suffered from asthma.
He once claimed that he learned the way of aikido from founder Morihei Ueshiba, who died five years before Seagal had ever set foot in Japan. When he finally got around to earning his black belt in 1993, his ex-wife Miyako Fujitani suggested that “the only reason Steven was awarded the black belt was because the judge, who was famous for his laziness, fell asleep during Steven’s presentation” and “just gave him the black belt” when he woke up.
Seagal once branded himself “an advisor to several CIA agents in the field,” which has never been corroborated by anyone other than himself. He says he encountered a dog with mystical powers that alerted him to his dojo bursting into flames and allowed him to extinguish the fire that threatened his livelihood, or so he claims. Then there’s his assessment that he was so integral to so many UFC fighters because “there is a signature kick that I’ve taught them that they’ve knocked champions out with and won world championships with.”
When that reached the ears of pioneering women’s MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, she said, “Obviously, the guy’s a liar” and that if he tried to teach her about her craft, “I would have to make him crap his pants a second time.” The man is clearly confident in his abilities both on and off-screen, to the point he was brought to tears reading a screenplay he’d written himself, but there’s always a hefty pinch of salt that needs to be carried around.
Lama Penor Rinpoche of the Palyul monastery clearly believes he’s something special after Seagal was elevated to the Buddhist spiritual level of tulku and declared the reincarnation of Terton Chungdrag Dorie in 1997, with his previous form having rediscovered and revealed secret teachings that had been obscured since the eighth century. Is he really the modern embodiment of a 17th-century tertön, though? Again, it depends entirely on who gets asked, and it’s a question not even high-profile Buddhist figures can agree on.
There’s quite clearly a not-insubstantial amount of bullshittery involved in the legend of Steven Seagal. However, none of it really matters because there’s only one person who buys into 100% of the hype, no questions asked, and there are no prizes for guessing who that person is.
