Sheen Dream needs diagnosing
Winning. Tiger blood. Plan better. In a matter of weeks, Charlie Sheen has transformed these simple phrases into part of the Internet lexicon, and he’s done it in the face of what promises to be one of the most public celebrity legal battles since Conan O’Brien fought NBC.
Last week, Sheen was officially fired from CBS’s hit comedy “Two and a Half Men” after the show had been placed on extended hiatus. Sheen has launched a wrongful termination case against the network and producer Chuck Lorre.
This might seem like just another case of a washed-up celebrity trying to fight back and gain a little bit of a foothold on his way out, but Sheen has transformed himself from a troubled actor to a full-blown media sensation by flaunting his eccentricities and asserting as boldly as he can that he has nothing to hide.
The only problem is that he may actually be insane.
On a media blitz following the imposed hiatus of “Men” that included appearances on ABC’s “20/20,” Sheen spouted off an array of bizarre quotes: He has “tiger blood,” and he is a “warlock” and a “bi-winner.” Just over 25 hours after launching his Twitter, he had one million followers.
In the two weeks since, he’s gathered more than a million more followers, started and ended a bizarre video broadcast called “Sheen’s Korner,” announced a book (the tentative title is “Apocalypse Me: The Jaws of Life”), launched charliesheen.com and is planning a tour (“Charlie Sheen LIVE: My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat Is Not an Option”) that sold out in 18 minutes, while TLC has announced plans to produce a documentary on the actor’s meltdown.
Is it all an act, a way for Sheen to fight back against the networks by playing up a bipolar version of himself? If so, he’s certainly, as he would say, winning. In the midst of CBS’s potentially damaging lawsuit, he appears to have not broken a sweat and stood by his resolve that his personal life has never affected his contractual obligations, all while deciding to run with the attention and use social networking and the Internet as aggressively as he can.
The danger is that it’s more reality than performance, and while Sheen stands to make millions more than he stands to lose in his lawsuit with CBS, he could easily be riding into an alarmingly public suicide.
It’s more damaging for reputable industry sources like The Hollywood Reporter to track Sheen’s every move. The Reporter’s website now has an entire section devoted to Sheen and has posted 10 stories since Friday about his activities. This harms its reputation by reducing it to the kind of “story-getting” tactics most familiar to TMZ.
Even if Sheen’s meltdown is one of the month’s biggest bits of celebrity news — which it certainly is — it needs to be approached cautiously. Sheen has become a social networking innovator, blazing his way across Twitter and the Internet with such ferocity it’s hard not to follow and even admire him.
At the same time, those reporting on him need to keep their distance and remember that the dust hasn’t come close to settling. It’s going to be a long, very public battle, and The Hollywood Reporter and its brethren will have plenty of material to nab Internet traffic with.
The bigger question: Is Charlie Sheen really a troubled, mentally ill actor who needs to retreat from his burning spotlight to seek medical attention, or has he constructed an elaborate, wacky façade?
The answer determines whether he’s really winning or whether he’ll become a devastated loser.
That’s Entertainment.
