Independent’s Eye by Joe Gandelman
If Charlie Sheen doesn’t get his axed CBS show “Two and Half Men” back then perhaps he can team up with British fashion designer John Galliano to star in a new show: “Two Half Wits.”
It’ll be a reality show.
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (click to share)
The news cycle has been dominated by news of Sheen and Galliano — yet further examples of super-rich, super-pampered and super-arrogant celebrities who have it all but still want more. They don’t believe they need to grapple with the kinds of consequences us mere mortals might face if WE spit in the faces of those who support our work or in faces of those who signed OUR paychecks.
In case you’ve been on Mars, America’s deficit hasn’t been high as Sheen seemed in recent months. Reports of his hotel room antics and rehab trips drove up tabloid and celebrity website readerships and caused his show’s nervous executive producer to suspend production. So Sheen went on verbal abuse attack against Chuck Lorre and CBS ““ so abusive and seemingly revealing that CBS and Lorre pulled show for the rest of the season. Sheen then seemingly launched a campaign to make it permanently dead. He has likely succeeded.
He fired his publicist, is reportedly planning to sue Lorre and CBS and did various morning talk show interviews. The most (in) famous was on NBC’s “Today Show” which aired in two parts. In part two he introduced viewers to his two live in girlfriends who he called “my Goddesses.” One is a porn star (take THAT average man on the street and John Edwards!).
How weird does Sheen seem? So weird that you have to wonder if in his recent self-delusional ABC “Good Morning America” interview Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was channeling Charlie Sheen.
You could imagine Gaddafi running to the phone afterwards: “Quick! Get me THREE Goddesses to show ABC next time. I’ll show that Sheen who is more unstable!”
Galliano, meanwhile, was suspended by Christian Dior when it became clear he doesn’t attend many bar mitzvahs: in a vile, filmed rant in a bar he told a patron “I love Hitler…Your mothers, your forefathers would all be f******* gassed.”
Sheen and Galliano aren’t the first celebrities to hurt themselves by showing the public their “real” selves. Comedian Jerry Lewis never recovered from the 50s and 60s contrast between his loveable characters and the conceited, arrogant, young millionaire people read about and saw in interviews. Seinfeld’s Michael Richards career was over after a You Tube-shown racist rant in a comedy club. And Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism and contempt towards women made him a leading man has-been.
Galliano may have a future: designing Mel Gibson’s wardrobe.
In interviews, Sheen uses the word “winning,” but what the public learned about him doesn’t just involve issues about alleged substance abuse or a power struggle with a studio. It revealed his attitude towards those who have less money or perceived power than him (talk about people with “little houses” and “ugly wives and ugly children”), consequences, what life owes him and doesn’t. And what he owes family, his parents — and himself.
Sheen and aren’t winners. They’re spoiled, enabled celebrity l-o-s-e-r-s ““ with big, fat bank accounts who’ll never starve but are greatly lacking.
Role models of exactly how not to turn out.
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Copyright 2011 Joe Gandelman
Joe Gandelman is a veteran journalist who wrote for newspapers overseas and in the United States. He has appeared on cable news show political panels and is Editor-in-Chief of The Moderate Voice, an Internet hub for independents, centrists and moderates. CNN’s John Avlon named him as one of the top 25 Centrists Columnists and Commentators. He can be reached at jgandelman@themoderatevoice.com and can be booked to speak at your event at www.mavenproductions.com.
Follow Joe Gandelman on Twitter @joegandelman.
