You cannot switch on the TV, surf the internet, log onto facebook or twitter without seeing these two little words blazened across every surface: Charlie Sheen. He is the hot ticket right now and has somehow taken centre stage on every ‘respectable’ news show there is. The Today Show, Good Morning America, Piers Morgan, he’s everywhere. Why? Because he’s lost his mind. That’s it. Any other reason? Nope. Hey, he may be drug free but drug tests don’t test for crazy. As I scrolled through all the facebook posts (and posted a few of my own), watched all the interviews on Youtube and started following him on twitter I asked myself: Is there such a thing as too much Tiger Blood?
Let’s take a look at Mr. Sheen who is a self described superstar with Adonis DNA. Is he a huge superstar? Sure. Did he win Oscar gold at 20? Well, the movie Platoon won four Oscars even though he wasn’t nominated so yes, I guess that’s true. He even belongs to one of those genetically blessed Hollywood families thanks to his Dad and his bro. Is he famous? Hell, yes. But not for being a great actor or churning out a string of wildly successful films. He’s famous for being a complete lunatic. Case closed.
Sure, he did some films in the 80s like Wall Street, Red Dawn and Lucas. Take a stroll through his Wikipedia filmography and count how much movie magic he’s actually made. A lot of films? Yes. A lot of box office gold? Umm.. no. Yet, during those ‘famous years’, he publically dated a host of porn stars and somehow made his way into the secret anals of the Hollywood Madam’s Little Black Book. He’s been hospitalized for drug related reasons numerous times and arrested for domestic violence again and again and again. Why is this news? Are we supposed to be surprised? I can argue that Mel Gibson was a true talent and Lindsay Lohan was a poor little exploited child star gone bad but Charlie? He’s just a goof. In every interview I see, I watch ‘real’ journalists try to present tough, hard hitting questions with responses that genuinely made me laugh out loud. Tell me, Andrea Canning of NBC, how can you refer to his girlfriends as ‘Goddesses’ with a straight face? I can see this making top shelf on a tabloid type news show, but CNN? Why are broadcast journalists giving this train wreck any attention? Let’s look at the term ‘train wreck’. A train wreck is horrible because of the magnitude of it’s damage and because we couldn’t do anything to stop it. And, more importantly, we just can’t seem to look away. Poor Charlie is obviously in the midst of a serious manic episode. He’s delusional and erratic. And you know what? Delusional and erratic is entertaining. One word: ratings.
I’ll leave you with a little snippet from one of those train wreck interviews. My guess is there will be many more.
Tell me what you think!
