Notes on Charlie Sheen and the End of Empire

Mar 15, 2011 10:25 PM EDT

Bret Easton Ellis

With his tweets, his manic interviews, his insurgent campaign against the entertainment world,
Sheen is giving America exactly what it wants out of a modern celebrity. In the full version of
an article that appeared in this weeks Newsweek, Bret Easton Ellis explains how you are
completely missing the point if you think Sheen's meltdown is about drugs.
Drugs is the first word Charlie Sheen utters in his only scene from Ferris Buellers Day Off, an
epic from the summer of 1986 whose ad line was Leisure Rules, and the one John Hughes
teen movie that has remained the least dated. This four minute scene, expertly written and
directed, takes place in a police station where Jeannie Bueller (Jennifer Grey), waiting to get
bailed out by her mom and, fuming about brother Ferriss charmingly anarchic ways (he breaks
all the rules and is happy; she follows all the rules and is unhappy), realizes shes sitting next
to a gorgeous (he was!) sullen-eyed dude in a leather jacket who looks like hes been up for
days on a drug binge. But hes not manic, just tired and sexily calm, his face so pale its almost
violet-hued. Annoyed, Jeannie asks, Why are you here? and Charlie, dead-panned, replies,
without regret: Drugs. And then he slowly disarms her bitchiness with his outrageously sexy
insouciance, transforming her annoyance into delight (they end up making out).
Thats when we first really noticed Charlie Sheen, and its the key moment in his movie career
(it now seems to define and sum up everything that followed). He hasnt been as entertaining
since. Until now. In getting himself fired from Two and a Half Men, this privileged child of the
medias sprawling entertainment Empire has now become its most gifted prankster. And now
Sheen has embraced the post-Empire, making his bid to explain to all of us what celebrity
means in that world. Whether you like it or not is beside the point. Its where we are, babe.
Were learning something. Rockn roll. Deal with it.
Post-Empire started appearing in full-force just about everywhere last year while Cee Lo
Greens Fuck You gleefully played over the soundtrack. The Kardashians so get it. The cast
(and the massive audience) of Jersey Shore gets it. Lady Gaga arriving at the Grammys in an
egg gets it, and she gets it while staring at Anderson Cooper (Empire!) and admitting she likes
to smoke weed when she writes songsbasically daring him: What are you gonna do about
that, bitch? Nicki Minaj gets it when she sings Right Thru Me and becomes one of her many
alter-egos on a red carpet. (Christina Aguilera starring in Burlesque doesnt get it at all.) Ricky
Gervaiss hosting of the Golden Globes got it. Robert Downey Jr., getting pissed off at Gervais,
did not. Robert De Niro even got it, subtly ridiculing his career and his lifetime achievement
trophy at the same awards show.

What this moment is about is Charlie Sheen solo. Its about a well-earned mid-life crisis played
out on Sheens Korner instead of in a life coachs office somewhere in Burbank.
John Mayer (the original poster boy for post-Empire) gets it in his legendary Playboy interview
and his TMZ appearances (he was the first celebrity to get what a game changer TMZ was)
and one of Mayers leftovers, Taylor Swift, gets it, taking on Mayer (who casually used and
dumped her) and even Kanye West (whose interruption of Swift on the VMAs scored a major
post-Empire moment as well as creating the masterpiece post-Empire single Runaway) in
two devastating songs about them on her latest record. James Franco not taking the Oscar
telecast seriously but treating it with gentle disrespect (which is exactly what the show
deserves) totally got it. (Anne Hathaway, unfortunately, didnt get it, but we like her anyway for
getting naked and jiggy with Jake G.) Post-Empire is Mark Zuckerberg staring with blank
impatience at Empire Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes and telling her how The Social Network and
its genesis story (he creates Facebook because he was rejected by a bitchy girl!) got it totally
wrong (which it did; he was right; sorry, Empire Aaron Sorkin). Empire is complaining that the
characters in Jonathan Franzens great 2010 novel Freedom arent likable enough. And it
should also go without saying that Banksy gets it more than just about anyone right now. For
every outspoken I-dont-give-a-shit Empire celebrity like Muhammad Ali or Andy Warhol or
Norman Mailer or Bob Dylan or John Lennon, there were a dozen Madonnas (one of the
queens of the Empire who was never real or funny enough to get iteverything interesting
about her now seems in retrospect dreadfully earnest) and Michael Jacksons (the ultimate
victim of Empire celebritya tortured boy lover and drug addict who humorlessly denied he
was either). To someone my age (47) Keith Richards (67) in his memoir Life has a kind of rare
healthy post-Empire geezer transparency. But for my younger friends, its no longer rare; its
now just the norm. What does shame mean anymore? my friends in their 20s ask. Why in the
hell did your boyfriend post a song called Suck My Ballz on Facebook last night? my mom
asks. But nothing yet compares to the transparency that Sheen has unleashed in the past two
weekscontempt about celebrity, his profession, the old Empire world order...
Post-Empire isnt just about admitting doing illicit things publicly and coming cleanits a (for
now) radical attitude that says the Empire lie doesnt exist anymore, you friggin Empire trolls.
To Empire gatekeepers, Charlie Sheen seems dangerous and in need of help because hes
destroying (and confirming) illusions about the nature of celebrity. Hes always been a role
model for a certain kind of male fantasy. Degrading, perhaps, but arent most male fantasies?
(I dont know any straight men who fantasize about Tom Cruises personal life.) Sheen has
always been a bad boy, which is part of his appealto men and women. Theres a manly
mock-dignity about Sheen that both sexes like a lot. What Sheen has exemplified and has
clarified is the moment in the culture when not giving a fuck about what the public thinks about
you or your personal life is what matters mostand what makes the public love you even more
(if not exactly CBS or the creator of the show that has made you so wealthy). Its a different
brand of narcissism than Empire narcissism. Eminem was post-Empires most outspoken
character when he first appeared and we were suddenly light years away from the
autobiographical pain of, say, Dylans Blood on the Tracks (one of Empires proudest and most
stylish moments). Its not that weve moved beyond craft, its just that theres a different kind of
self-expression at playmore raw, less diluted. On The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem rages
more transparently than Dylan against the idiocy of his own flaws and the failure of his

marriage and his addictions and fantasies than any Empire artist (and lets include Empire
Bruce Springsteen and his great Tunnel of Love album while were at it)by recording
fearlessly the fake murder of his ex-wife at his own enraged hands, a defying act that Bob or
Bruce would never have even considered. Blood on the Tracks and Tunnel of Love have an
Empire tastefulness and elegance that in post-Empire has no meaning. That doesnt deny their
power or artistry. It just means weve moved on. And, hey, thats okay. Let it go.
We extol celebrity at a time when it has never seemed more fleeting or meaningless. A lot
more people are famous now for doing, well, nothingand, so what? Fran Lebowitz in her
Empire HBO documentary (Produced by Graydon Carter! Directed by Martin Scorsese!)
complainedand Im paraphrasingthat what has really been lost in American culture is
connoisseurship: the ability to tell the difference between whats genuinely good and whats
mediocre. Shes bemoaning the fact that we dont seem to be at that point anymore where the
ability to be very good at something and to be rewarded for that talent (with attention, respect,
money) exists. That era is not really goneat least not in the alarmist Empire way Fran thinks
it is, even though every day in American culture it feels like it may have evaporatedbut only if
you have an Empire viewpoint. When youre being a housewife on a reality show, your fame
shelf-life is short because so many other people can do what you do and you can be replaced
instantly (and they are every season and everyones okay with it). Very few people become
famous today because they can actually do interesting things and Charlie Sheen has been,
admittedly, not one of them. Charlie Sheen staggers amiably through a bad sitcom. Hes fine.
Hes inoffensive. Sheen barely engages with anyone on Two and a Half Men. He retains a
semi-stunned look of restrained disgust at the shoddiness and unearned smarminess of the
proceedings. If Sheen was allowed to give Charlie Harper more personalitya spark, a
genuine leerhe would probably throw the sitcom woodenness of Two and a Half Men off
balance.
His admitted contempt for the material makes the show (now) more interesting than it ever
was, but not enough to actually endure an episode. Sheen has admitted that this comfort TV
is a tin can of a show (hes actually called it much worse), but do the fans of Two and a Half
Men give a shit if its star does blow, fucks hookers, and allegedly abuses women (who keep
coming back again and again and again for more abuse)? Every time theres a lapse in Charlie
Sheens imaginary moral clause (he doesnt have an actual one) the show does better than
ever in the ratings. Trudging through an awful sitcom that Sheen has to appear in to make the
big bucksand that he knows is no goodhas got to be its own kind of princely nightmare.
(Its not like hes playing Don Draper so, hey, its worth it. Its not even like hes playing Jack
Donaghy! Hes playing an unamusing watered-down version of Charlie Sheen and that must
kind of suck.) If I had to perform these scenes or deliver these one-liners week after week after
week, Id probably want to lose myself in drugs and alcohol and hookers as well. (Actually, I
want to lose myself in drugs and alcohol and hookers anyway. What man doesnt?) And I
would expect the people who have hired and rehired and rehired me and helped make them
an enormous amount of money to ignore my weekend escapades and let the cameras roll
when I show up to work on time Monday morning. Which, as of now, Charlie Sheen no longer
has to do.

You are completely missing the point if you think the Charlie Sheen Moment is really a story
about drugs. Yeah, they play a part, but it isnt at the core of whats happening. Drugs are not
why this particular Sheen moment is so fascinating. I know functioning addicts. Theyre not that
rare or that interesting. Let the flameout begin, but lets also take his five kids and the horrible
wives out of the picturethey also dont have anything to do with The Sheen Show. Theyre
really not a part of the narrative that has been unfolding. This isnt about them. (I think most of
us who have gone through our parents traumatic divorces arent going to find anything more
outrageous than our own experiences here except that Sheens has been played out publicly
and our parents tortured divorces were not.) No, what this moment is about is Charlie Sheen
solo. Its about a well-earned mid-life crisis played out on Sheens Korner instead of in a life
coachs office somewhere in Burbank. The mid-life crisis is the moment in a mans life when
you realize you cant (wont) maintain the pose that you thought was required of you any longer
youre older and you have a different view of life and this is when the bitterness and
acceptance blooms. Tom Cruise had a similar meltdown at the same age in the summer of
2005, but his was more politely manufactured (and, of course, he was never known as an
addict). Cruise had his breakdown while smiling and he couldnt get loose, he couldnt be
natural about it. Hes always essentially been the good boy who cant say Fuck You the way
Sheen (or even someone as benign as Cee Lo) can. Cruise is still that alter boy from Syracuse
who believes in the glamour of Empire earnestness, and this is ultimately his limitation as a
movie star and as an actor. (Could Cruise be hiding something? That would explain why he
was so great in Magnolia as the liar who gets caught.) Tact might have worked in the Empire,
but something like Knight and Day just doesnt fly in post-Empire. And Les Grossman gyrating
on the MTV Movie Awards (by the way, totally Empire) is not Tom Cruise getting post-Empire
loose. Les Grossman taps into a giant part of how Cruise actually comes off in the press
Empire control freak at its most monstrous. This is why some people think Les Grossman is
funny because the character parodies a side of Cruise that is recognizable. Face it: Cruise was
a king of the Empire and not even Les Grossman is going to erase that. Sheen was a minor
member of the Empire by comparison. Who would have thought that he would be the one
solidifying and paying the price for this transitional phase of post-Empire celebrity?
So what is another Les (Moonves) thinking about Charlie Sheen now? Well, on one level Les
must have approved some of the following for a long time up until the official firing. The
arrests? The accidental overdose? The half-hearted stints in rehab? Martin Sheens teary-eyed
press conference? The briefcase full of coke? The Mercedes towed out of the ravine? The
misdemeanor third-degree assault on the third wife who also went to rehabshe was addicted
to crack, for Gods sake? Sheen allegedly threatening same wife to cut off her head and put it
in a box and send it to her mother? (It sounds like something he would say and it always
cracks me up.) Sheen chain-smoking on TMZ, gesturing to the 24-year-old goddesses hes
shacked up with, both alternately bored and enjoying himself, railing against CBS and Warner
Brothers who have decided to cancel the rest of Two and a Half Mens season, and later that
week fire him? The priceless dialogue? (On CBS executives: They lay down with their ugly
wives in front of their ugly children and look at their loser lives.) The September 11 conspiracy
theories Sheen believes in and being a member of the 9/11 Truth Movement? (Oh, well.)
Shooting Kelly Preston in the arm? (Maybe the impetus for her to gravitate to gay dudes, a
friend has suggested.) Fucking Ginger Lynn and Heather Hunter and Bree Olson? Being a
regular client of Heidi Fleiss? Refusing to admit he has hit rock bottom (A fishing term,

Charlie says dismissively.) Admittinggaspthat his PR guy lied about the medication mixup?!?
And yet he always managed to show up to work and has not hurt the reputation of Two and a
Half Men despite the drugs, the whoring, and the mid-life crisis. Compared to Cruise, Sheen
has put on a mesmerizing and refreshing display of mid-life crisis honestyhes just himself,
an addict, take it or leave it (the Empire regime at CBS decided to leave it no matter what the
legalities are). On Piers Morgan and 20/20 and the uncut TMZ interview Sheen doesnt seem
like hes on drugs. Look, you dont do drugs and then want to give TV interviews. You do drugs
and want to bang hookers in Vegas while smoking a carton of Marlboro Lights and downing
three bottles of Patron Silver. You dont do blow and then chat with Andrea Canning on ABC
who looks both horrified and also, um, charmed. (Hey? Wanna know a secret, Andrea?
Partying is fun. Addiction is hell but partying is a fucking blast.) These interviews dont seem
erratic to me. (Hes taken various drug tests and passed them all.) The TMZ interview is a
major post-Empire triumph and I thought he looked great on CNN. Piers Morgan, after an
uneven month (try watching the Empire attitude of the Winklevoss twins and not cross your
eyes) seemed, finally, happily excited with Sheens aggressive transparency. Compare this to
how bored Piers was with Janet Jacksons Empire interview, complete with evasive pauses
that lasted so long you could have rolled boulders through them, and Sheens honesty made
Piers seem almost positively orgasmic. (Imagine Sheen being interviewed by Oprah. Sheen
refusing to bow and apologize to the Empress might actually cause her face to melt off and her
head to explode.) Sheen seems like a genuinely interesting person now. Maybe a wreck, but
REAL. Transparency: thats where Charlies atsorry, Dr. Drew, its just not as logical as you
think it is. So Sheen is in the strange new position of defining what that exactly means for a
celebrity in post-Empire.
Its thrilling watching someone call out the solemnity of the celebrity interview, and Charlie
Sheen is loudly calling it out as the sham it is. Hes raw now, and lucid and intense and the
most fascinating person wandering through the culture. (No, its not Colin Firth or David
Fincher or Bruno Mars or super-Empire Tiger Woods, guys.) Were not used to these kinds of
interviews. Its coming off almost as performance art and weve never seen anything like it
because hes not apologizing for anything. Its an irresistible spectacle, but its also telling
because we are watching someone profoundly bored and contemptuous of the media
engaging with the media and using the media to admit things about themselves and their
desires that seem shocking because of societys old-ass Empire guidelines. No one has ever
seen a celebrity more nakedly revealingeven in Sheens evasions theres a truthful
playfulness that makes Tigers mea culpa press conference look like something manufactured
by Nicholas Sparks.
The people unable to process Sheens honesty cant do this because its so unlike the pre-fab
way celebrity presented itself within the Empire. Anyone who has put up with the fake rigors of
celebrity (or has addiction problems) has got to find a kindred spirit here. The new fact is: if
youre punching a paparazzo, you now look like an old-school loser. If you cant accept the fact
that were at the height of an exhibitionistic display culture and that youre going to be
blindsided by TMZ (and humiliated by Harvey Levin, or Chelsea Handlerprincess of postEmpire) walking out of a club on Sunset at 2 in the morning trashed, then youre basically

fucked and you should become a travel agent instead of a movie star. Being publicly mocked is
part of the game now and youre a fool if you dont play along with it and are still enacting the
role of humble, grateful celebrity instead of embracing your fucked-up-ness. Gagas little
monsters, anyone? Not showing up to collect your award at the Razzies for that piece of shit
you made? So Empire. This is why Charlie seems saner and funnier than any other celebrity
right now. He also makes better jokes about his situation than most worried editorialists or latenight comedians. A lot of it is sheer bad-boy bravadojust saying shit to see how people react,
which is very post-Empirebut a lot of it is transparent, and on that level, Sheen is, um,
winning. And Im not sure being fired from Two and a Half Men and having to wear those
horrible rockabilly bowling shirts for another two years is, um, losing
What do people want from Charlie Sheen? Knowing more details about the benders and the
porn stars and the trumped-up anti-Semitism (well, yeah, maybe, whatever) and being a
womanizer (what the fuck does that archaic term mean)? What has been labeled freakery is
really just a bored, pissed-off celebrity whose presence helps make a TV network an insane
amount of money and by comparison is paid accordingly. When I tweeted I love Charlie
Sheen on February 28 after watching him on the Piers Morgan show (and no, I wasnt being
ironic), the number of tweets I received agreeing with me (not ironically) from both men and
women was a surprise. (It was the fastest I had been RTd since something I tossed off about
Angry Birds a couple of months ago.) Look, Im not denying he has drug and alcohol problems,
and perhaps even struggles with mental illness, but so do a lot of people in Hollywood who
hide it so much better or that the celebrity press just doesnt care enough about, and Im not
denying that Sheen is exploiting a problematic situation that he has helped create. But you
cant step around the fact that the negativity certain people feel about Sheen has never
outweighed our fascination with the hedonism Charlie enjoys and which remains the envy of
any manif only women werent around to keep them liars. His supposed propensity for
violence against women hasnt hurt his popularity with female fans either (and if you want to
get into what that means then that is a whole other story for another articleor about fifty
books. Jezebel.com take note.) And, of course, if Sheen was a rock star (another anachronistic
term from the Empire), not many people would be paying attention.
Do they really want manners? Civility? Empire courtesy? No. They want reality, no matter how
crazy the celeb who brings it on has become. And this is what enflames CBS and the Empire
press (but also gives them boners while theyre wringing their hands): Charlie Sheen doesnt
care what you think of him anymore, and he scoffs at the idea that anyone even thinks theres
such a thing as PR taboo. Hey suits, I dont give a shit, you suck, is what so many of the
disenfranchised have responded to. Charlie Sheen blows open the myth that men will outgrow
the adolescent pursuit of pleasure, the dream of a life without rules or responsibilities; even if
they have children, a flicker of that dream always remains. Charlie Sheen: Truth! Score! Weve
come a long way in the last ten days: Charlie Sheen is the new reality, bitch, and anyone whos
a hater can go back and hang out with the rest of the trolls in the Empires dank graveyard. No
one knew it in 1986, but Charlie Sheen was actually Ferris Buellers dark little brother all
along