CHARLIE SHEEN: AN APPRECIATION

[defrog]

Or, "The post everyone else is afraid to write."

As you are no doubt aware, the most important news story in America right now is the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East the Wisconsin union protests Charlie Sheen’s midlife crisis. Because it matters when famous people lose their shit. Look at how much news coverage Lindsay Lohan got for it. I rest my case.

And I wasn’t going to post anything about it – I wasn’t even bothering to click on the Yahoo headlines, to be honest. But after hearing enough people on Facebook complain that Sheen was getting so much attention (and not seeing the irony of this) and generally denouncing him as an immoral egotistical jerk – and after bedsitter23  noted that his rants were strikingly familiar to anyone who follows professional wrestling – I thought I should say something.

And this is it:

Charlie Sheen is Mr Entertainment.

Seriously.

I don’t mean his sitcom career. Or his movie career, for that matter (although let’s admit, he was good in Wall Street and Hot Shots!). I mean his post-cancellation interviews.

"Thay can't hang with me, their bones would melt like wax."

“I said, 'Get out of my face with your corduroys.' "

"Here nobody panics and nobody dies."

"I'll do a cologne and a book, I'll do a movie, I got people lunging at me.”

"I am on a drug—it's called Charlie Sheen!"

Admit it – most people on television never give an interview that quotable. And it’s pretty much the main reason anyone is bothering to put microphones in front of him. That, and there’s an audience for it.

It’s entertainment, in other words.

Okay. Maybe I’m being a little sarcastic. Maybe even more than a little. Certainly I have no real interest in defending Sheen, his lifestyle or his ego. He doesn’t need my help, and it’s none of my business anyway.

I just find it disingenuous that people feel entitled to pile on him for his behavior from some holier-than-thou standpoint whilst hanging on every word he says and tuning in to see his latest antics – especially when there are far worse examples to be had (see: Mel Gibson, Andy Dick, Mariah Carey, etc).

It’s just entertainment. That’s what entertainers do. And Cancelled Charlie is funnier than Spin City and Two And A Half Men ever were. He should have a Twitter account.* And CBS likes making sitcoms out of Twitter accounts. They could pick up his Twitter feed and get William Shatner to play him. Or Robert Downey Jr. 

Or the Ultimate Warrior. Why not? It’s no weirder an idea than giving Jessica Simpson a reality show where she could melt down in public EVERY WEEK. 

Sorry Charlie,

This is dF

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*EDITED TO ADD [10:13am]: He got one.