“Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?” – Maximus, Gladiator (2000)
It’s best to let the furor die down before writing about Charlie Sheen. He became larger than life all of the sudden, a multi-media spectacular of machetes, cussing, occult references and tiger blood. He embodied the self-help guru with the zaniness of a couch jumping Tom Cruise.
And then it all came crashing down. He went on an impromptu comedy tour and bombed the first show and has continued to do so. Fans are upset that he is awful on stage and that they are not entertained.
One begs to differ. They are entertained. They are receiving exactly what they came to see: a half-crazed, wealthy, drugged out, partied out narcissist with a special zeal for rants. He gives them this, the object of their desire, and they boo (article contains accurate, and therefore somewhat graphic, descriptions of Charlie Sheen).
Charlie Sheen, as a front page celebrity, has become a modern day gladiator. Gone are the days when men and women watched people kill each other for sport. Now, in this democratic, Internet saturated, social media crazed world we all live in, we watch with awe and wonder individual people destroy their own lives. Reality TV has aided and abetted this infatuation, but the blame falls on humanity and its quest for blood, whether it is inflicted by real life battle or media battles.