NEW YORK – Of all the thousands upon thousands of words said, written or broadcast about Charlie Sheen in the past week, one pithy tweet may have best summed up the seemingly endless appetite for all things Charlie.
“Haven’t heard anything from Charlie Sheen lately,” comedian Norm MacDonald tweeted. “I hope he’s still not all right.”
Not to worry – there was much more Sheen to come, and he was still not all right. With production halted on his top-rated “Two and a Half Men,” the self-proclaimed “Vatican assassin warlock” was ragging on his bosses, insisting he was clean while barely sounding coherent, and fighting for custody of his twin toddlers. And soon, the apparently unlimited forum he was being given was raising questions about the media’s role in all of it.
Were they, to use a term from the addiction world, “enabling” Sheen to continue on what seemed to many a path dangerous to his career, his health and his family? To use a stronger word, were they exploiting him?
And if yes, did that matter? To what extent, if any, did the media have a responsibility to consider what’s best for their subject – especially a rich TV star aggressively courting publicity?