Of Charlie Sheen, Has Beens, And Never Weres

Back to Charlie Sheen for a minute - or, preferably, less.

Jezebel - a/k/a Anna Holmes - slips away from her own (amazing) home to pen an op-ed for the New York Times, making the valuable point that the less discussed aspect of the Charlie Seen story is actually his penchant for violence against his female partners; Sheen has been charged a number of times in a number of incidetns relating to pretty much all of his girlfriends and ex-wives (remember, both Brooke Mueller and Denise Richards have sworn out orders of protection against him at various points, Mueller's resulting in her sons being taken, last week, from Sheen's home, where he is now living with two other women).

Holmes goes on to link Sheen's behavior to our societal perceptions of women, especially women seen as prostitutes, pornstars, or sexually loose. Anyone familiar with discussions of Rape Culture will find this familiar, and in some ways it's great to see this brought forward in public consciousness. But along the way, Holmes makes an assertion that I think deserves some consideration and pushback:

The privilege afforded wealthy white men like Charlie Sheen may not be a particularly new point, but it’s an important one nonetheless. Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears are endlessly derided for their extracurricular meltdowns and lack of professionalism on set; the R&B star Chris Brown was made a veritable pariah after beating up his equally, if not more, famous girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. Their careers have all suffered, and understandably so.

This hasn’t been the case with Mr. Sheen, whose behavior has been repeatedly and affectionately dismissed as the antics of a “bad boy” (see: any news article in the past 20 years), a “rock star” (see: Piers Morgan, again) and a “rebel” (see: Andrea Canning’s “20/20” interview on Tuesday). He has in essence, achieved a sort of folk-hero status; on Wednesday, his just-created Twitter account hit a million followers, setting a Guinness World Record.

Holmes works hard to make Sheen seem especially successful and unbowed by previous scandals and problems, both in the above paragraphs and a previous one, where she points out that Sheen is the highest paid actor on television right now (I don't entirely buy it, but it is true that most other hit shows are ensemble efforts). This, she says, makes him different from Chris Brown as well as Lohan and Spears, because their careers suffered.

All of which made me wonder... just who took a close look at Charlie Sheen's career?

Charlie Sheen's "career" is, at best, a mixed bag; a frank assessment would, I think, call him an early, failed movie star who has resurrected himself for television in a mid-career shift that intially smacked of desperation. Until Two and a Half Men took off, Sheen was mostly unemployable. While he'd initially enjoyed some notoriety as a film actor (in ensemble pieces and mainly as the star of two Oliver Stone efforts, Platoon and Wall Street), Sheen was brought down, as a number of men his age were, by early success that led to drug addiction and dissolution (and the first of a number of stints in hospitals and rehab).

Indeed, Sheen's ability to break into film acting was greased, most obviously, by being a child of fame: much of his early success was overshadowed by the fact of his being Martin Sheen's son (along with the similarly timed rise of his brother, Emilio Estevez). Many of his personal problems, too, can be traced to an upbringing in a wealthy, permissive atmosphere without a lot of adult supervision.

All of which is to say that Holmes is right to talk about Sheen as "privileged", but his privelege comes less from a successful career than the accident of his birth, and that he probably more closely relates to, say, Robert Chambers (the "Preppie Killer" of New Yorker Jennifer Levin) in terms of class and upbringing than, say, Chris Brown (or for that matter, Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears, both of whom have made no secret of their "up from nothing" rise out of the middle class). Sheen was privileged by birth, not by career. And he has plenty of career "reversals", should one care to look. More to the point, I'd say his career is a good lesson in what happens to a modest talent that is not nurtured or trained, but instead is given too much too soon only to squander future potential in a morass of addiction and downward spirals.

The bloated, blowsy presence on Two and a Half Men, who mainly gets by on deadpan expressions of outrageousness, is not something that marks great acting, or brilliant comic timing. Two and a Half Men is a hit on equal parts notoriety, strong writing, and Sheen's being surrounded by a talented cast of realtive unknowns and unsung heroes (like Jon Cryer and Conchata Ferrell). Sheen's rarely received critical acclaim for his role, nor the knd of recognition Cryer has (with an Emmy for Best Supprting Actor in a comedy series).

And really, why did CBS pick up Two and a Half Men as a series? Because it was relatively cheap to produce, featuring two former film presences (also known in the trade as "has beens") from the eighties whose careers were well below their past salary expectations. Why would CBS not especially blink an eye at canceling the show now? Because they have a plethora of other, successful comedies with similar pedigrees, and because Sheen, at some $25 million a year in salary, is no longer a cheap date. Or worth the price.

Charlie Sheen isn't an example of "great artistry" gone wrong - he's a dissolute playboy whose world revolves around, as Holmes suggests, the degrading world of porn, prostitution and drugs, where everyone and everything has a price and claiming a moral high ground is next to impossible. As much as Holmes is right to critically view a culture which denigrates women and judges some women worthy of abuse, we do live in a world where choosing a lifestyle of porn and prostitution and drugs and alcohol addiction is not without consequences. No one shoud be subjected to a life of violence and abuse. One way to avoid that, it seems, is not joining Charlie Sheen in his drug addled, pornographic fantasies of a life.

My friend J in B challenged me, fairly, on the idea in my John Galliano post that "creative stars" are given too much room to become "Sacred Monsters." That is, that they are forgiven excesses and abuses others would pay for, because, for whatever reason, they are "talented" and "special." it's a fair observation, and one I think that is especially true with Galliano and others. But not, as he suggested - and as Holmes apparently agrees - Charlie Sheen. Sheen isn't an example of great talent given a "hall pass" to act out... he's a child of wealth and privilege who has never been told that the rules should really apply to him. And, in the end, it's not just that he's not held to account for his violent acting out or challenged to face his drug issues... it's that applying those rules might really have gotten him to face both his addictions and changed his behaviors towards women. And maybe even allowed him to discover the real acting ability that would have sustained a long, successful career. At this pint, though, we'll really never know. At least, not about his career.

Comments

[Off Color Fun]

Charlie Sheen's cheese has finally slipped off his cracker. It is sad because "Two and a half men" was a really funny show. Let's hope Sheen recovers from whatever his problem is. If you like funny videos, drop by