Shit, guys...
Jun. 6th, 2012 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficI think we're going to have to stop with the "if Charlie Sheen were a woman, he wouldn't have a career!" line. I just realized--Lindsey Lohan has a career, after all.
Obviously, different situations, but very comparable. Sheen's downfall has been a lot more memetic; scandalous without being too gross for the mainstream. Ranting about tiger blood and having a harem of porn stars is a lot more, for lack of a better word, 'glamorous' than, say, Mel Gibson's troubles. Lohan hasn't gone viral in the same way, but she's had a lot of nipple slips and lesbianism. Salacious enough for our purposes.
I think what it comes down to is that while Sheen is a PR nightmare, at least for a family network like NBC, he's still able to say his lines*. As long as he can do the job and get people talking, someone somewhere will be willing to roll the dice on him. Same story with Lohan, only far less people are willing to take the chance because she can't do the job. It's a virtual certainty she'll not show up, she'll forget her lines, or she'll even get into legal trouble which prevents her from working. Which is why Lohan is doing a Lifetime movie and Sheen is getting cable TV show (on FX? Honestly, FX? You canceled Terriers? I'd expect this from Spike, but you guys have Raylan).
*At least, that's my impression from what coverage I did pick up. Doing the job wasn't an issue, it's that he was calling his boss a fuckwad and bragging about banging porn stars. But professionalism is important in Hollywood. That's why Keanu Reeves and Sam Worthington have careers. They're not the best actors in the world, but they'll be on time, they won't cause trouble, and they'll know their lines. Of course, you can say the same about a lot of uncast PoC actors who have the potential to do a better acting job, but that's another post.
So, Charlie Sheen--annoying, overexposed, and a general example of the triumph of our cultural tastelessness over any sense of decorum (see: TLC's evening line-up), but not a male privilege case study.
Obviously, different situations, but very comparable. Sheen's downfall has been a lot more memetic; scandalous without being too gross for the mainstream. Ranting about tiger blood and having a harem of porn stars is a lot more, for lack of a better word, 'glamorous' than, say, Mel Gibson's troubles. Lohan hasn't gone viral in the same way, but she's had a lot of nipple slips and lesbianism. Salacious enough for our purposes.
I think what it comes down to is that while Sheen is a PR nightmare, at least for a family network like NBC, he's still able to say his lines*. As long as he can do the job and get people talking, someone somewhere will be willing to roll the dice on him. Same story with Lohan, only far less people are willing to take the chance because she can't do the job. It's a virtual certainty she'll not show up, she'll forget her lines, or she'll even get into legal trouble which prevents her from working. Which is why Lohan is doing a Lifetime movie and Sheen is getting cable TV show (on FX? Honestly, FX? You canceled Terriers? I'd expect this from Spike, but you guys have Raylan).
*At least, that's my impression from what coverage I did pick up. Doing the job wasn't an issue, it's that he was calling his boss a fuckwad and bragging about banging porn stars. But professionalism is important in Hollywood. That's why Keanu Reeves and Sam Worthington have careers. They're not the best actors in the world, but they'll be on time, they won't cause trouble, and they'll know their lines. Of course, you can say the same about a lot of uncast PoC actors who have the potential to do a better acting job, but that's another post.
So, Charlie Sheen--annoying, overexposed, and a general example of the triumph of our cultural tastelessness over any sense of decorum (see: TLC's evening line-up), but not a male privilege case study.
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no subject
Date: 2012-06-08 03:57 pm (UTC)Another point of contrast would just be that Sheen was a much more established actor than Lohan; the latter had only started to be successful when she flamed out, and hasn't been in anything successful in, what, seven years?