A Sheening Example of Nothing

For those who requested this . . . To the others, I apologize.

It’s difficult to discuss Charlie Sheen without being moralistic.  Or fatalistic.  Or disgusted.   And unsurprised.

Sheen always has been a Hollywood “bad boy.”  He was on Madam Heidi Fleiss’s infamous client list in the 1980’s and 90’s.   The “Wild Thing” in the film Major League was type-casting; Sheen even played baseball in high school. I always thought that Charlie Harper in Two and a Half Men was Charlie Sheen, albeit with co-stars, laugh track and producers.   He’s been arrested several times, is a known and admitted abuser of drugs and alcohol and has a string of domestic violence charges against him.  That he now fancies himself as the Hugh Hefner of our generation (erroneously believing we’re otherwise lacking) is no revelation.

The shock is that we’re listening and watching.  Sheen garnered one and half million Twitter followers in less than a week.  A book deal.  Hours of television interviews.  On-camera drug tests.  Video of his children being taken away by authorities.

Admittedly, he is colorful.  He has a way with words.  It must come from the tiger blood in him that propels him on one speed to be a rockstar from Mars . . . go.  He entertains . . . though I suspect, at this point, there is more laughter at him than with him. 

It is time to shut him up.  Jeff Rossin, move out of Sober Valley Lodge.  Piers Morgan, stop giggling with your homeboy.  Your interview was less than impressive, to say the least.  I changed the channel.  I won’t be watching you again.

Sheen glamorizes his hedonistic lifestyle (which, by the way, he is free to follow as long as all involved are consenting adults, no one gets harmed, and the children are not around).   Piers Morgan, however, crossed the line with:   “You’re entitled to behave however the hell you like as long as you don’t scare the horses and the children.” But feel free to beat up on the women? Was that his point?  The press titillates about life with the “goddesses.” No one addresses the misogyny (hatred of women) and misogamy (hatred of marriage). This is a man charged multiple times with violence against women, and particularly against the women closest to him – fiancées, wives and the mothers of his children.    The way he calls his live-in girlfriends “ the goddesses,” while purporting to put them on a pedestal, is just another method of dehumanization.  Just wait until they cross him.

Sheen sidesteps these issues. Instead, he rants about his contract rights.  Although I confess ignorance regarding the television industry and certainly Sheen’s contractual arrangements, by all accounts, CBS, the entity that pays for the show, cancelled production.   Morals clause or not, I suspect erratic behavior, admitted absence from rehearsal (or “practice” as Sheen denigrates) and fear for the safety of employees including Sheen, are grounds for suspension. 

Sheen’s diatribes and anti-Semitic attacks (and, yes, I do believe they were intended as such – one’s Hebrew name is not one’s given name in this country), however, are leveled at the Executive Producer.  Oddly, and never mentioned, is the fact that Sheen’s own manager also is a Producer on the show.   There’s more going on than meets the eye . . . or the mouth of Sheen.

There is, however, one thing to be thankful for:  unlike the real Tiger or Hef, Sheen never was anyone’s idol.  At least until now.