Collage by Dave Donald

Inside media’s troubling gender-biased coverage of celebrity meltdowns

Charlie Sheen took thinking outside the bun to a whole new level in July when he drunkenly wandered around a Taco Bell drive thru greeting fellow fast food visitors with “Sorry I am so fucking hammered.” Video of the incident soon made the rounds and the winning warlock was once again making headlines. As it did with the actor’s well-publicized 2011 meltdown, media covered Sheen’s bad behaviour like it was a sitcom—wondering what hilarity and hijinks he would get up to next. Then and now, his substance abuse problems, anti-Semitism, and responsibility for making #winning happen were largely swept under the rug. Little mention was made of his history of violence against
women or his lacklustre parenting record. Instead, Sheen landed a 2012 Rolling Stone cover and made several prime time appearances. He earned reported $1.8 million (U.S.) per episode of Two and a Half Men.

It doesn’t take long to see the double standard when it comes to celebrity meltdowns: Compare coverage of Sheen’s meltdown to that of Drake-lover Amanda Bynes or an umbrella-wielding Britney Spears. At the same time Sheen was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, Lindsay Lohan appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a piece that painstakingly detailed Lohan’s substance abuse issues and legal troubles. It also made frequent reference to her haggard appearance and questioned whether she would ever, ever get her once-promising career back on track. The verdict: no. Sheen #winning. Lohan #tragic.

For bad boys like Sheen being bad is good for business. Not so much for Lohan. Her last film The Canyons was largely panned before it even hit theatres. Reviewers seemed unable to separate the Lohan they saw on the big screen with the Lohan they saw on the TMZ small screen. Lohan is definitely not the worst thing about The Canyons, but almost every review focussed on her performance and never missed an opportunity to refer to her as “embattled actress Lindsay Lohan” or “troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan.” Chris Brown is always just Chris Brown not “Rihanna beater Chris Brown” or “violent misogynist Chris Brown” or “serial douchebag Chris Brown.”

And then there’s Shia LaBeouf. Where do we even start? If you’re just joining the LaBeouf crazy train already in progress: he’s been arrested for disturbing a theatre performance (he didn’t care much for Cabaret); chased a homeless men around Times Square; plagiarized people; punched people; and just generally behaved bizarrely. He announced his retirement from acting—how very 2010 Joaquin Phoenix of him—and then appeared at a film festival sporting a paper bag over his head with “I’m Not Famous Anymore” scrawled on it. It turns out this was all part of a performance art piece called #IAMSORRY. Media coverage of the piece focussed on LaBeouf’s eccentricity and his valuable contribution to the dialogue around performance art. One media outlet even gathered a panel of performance artists to discuss LaBeouf’s work with one going so far as to say: “He’s starting a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had.”

Following his recent booze-fuelled NYC meltdown, the media speculated on whether LaBeouf would head to rehab. He was photographed carrying an AA book which was enough to satisfy bloggers who didn’t question whether LaBeouf was really serious about recovery or if the book was just a PR prop. There was mention of his mental state, but not nearly the coverage of say a 2007 head-shaving Spears. The consensus was that LaBeouf ’s career would recover—just maybe not as a theatre reviewer. Compare this to the seemingly endless column inches devoted to whether Lohan’s career will ever bounce back and speculation that the mean girl now uses her talent to trade blowies for blow.

Media rarely commented on LaBeouf’s appearance, despite the fact that disturbia could be used to refer to one of his films, as well as his approach to personal hygiene. Media coverage of Bynes’ meltdown focused largely on her physical appearance, commenting on what she wore and how much her appearance had changed—and not in a good way. The media regularly updates us on Sheen, while Bynes has received little post-meltdown coverage. Redemption stories
only get coverage when there’s a male protagonist. And while the Bynes story has a happy ending—post rehab she is doing better and has not once asked Drake to murder her vagina—that’s not always the case. If Lohan or Bynes were to die, they would get a media circus of Whitney Houston proportions, not the respectful coverage afforded Philip Seymour Hoffman or Heath Ledger.

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and that Lohan’s actually been punking us all this time. Soon she’ll announce it’s all been one big performance art piece. If she did, the media would no doubt accuse her of stealing LaBeouf’s paper bag and he’d be arrested for disrupting her show.

Lisa Whittington-Hill is the publisher of This Magazine, and like
Shia, she doesn’t care much for Cabaret.

How we imagine an “arty” Shia LeBeouf may look  || By User:Wiki Lon (Own work) [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

When male celebrities implode on the world stage, they’re arty heroes. When women do it, they’re called “troubled” and worse

Did you miss the recent Valentine’s Day announcement that winning warlock Charlie Sheen is getting married for the fourth time? Maybe you were busy having a life, or watching season two of House of Cards (SO GOOD!) or let your subscription to Winning Warlock Weekly lapse.

Who can blame you after Sheen’s well-publicized 2011 meltdown, or “meltforward” as he called it, complete with truth torpedos, goddesses and weird rants about tiger blood. The media covered Sheen’s meltdown—I refuse to make meltforward happen—like it was a sitcom or comedy tour, wondering what hilarity and hijinx Sheen would get up to next. His history of violence against women, substance abuse, anti-Semitism and responsibility for making #winning happen were largely swept under the rug. Sheen’s behaviour was often described as “antics” or dismissed, as “hey, look Charlie’s being zany again.”

In fact, during his meltdown heyday, Sheen was treated like a rock star. He landed a Rolling Stone cover and made several primetime appearances that provided him ample airtime to explain himself and his behaviour. Sheen was also the highest paid television actor at the time—earning a reported $1.8 million (US) per episode of Two and a Half Men. That kind of cheddar buys a lot of bowling shirts. Sheen’s mental state may have been questioned during his meltdown, but not nearly as much as that of a 2007 meltdown era Britney Spears.

Sheen’s media image hasn’t changed much since 2011. Coverage of his recent engagement largely laughed off his 2011 “antics,” instead focussing on his desire to have children with his new bride. No mention was made of Sheen’s history of domestic violence or lacklustre parenting record. Does this man even have custody of any of his other four children? Do his children just go directly from the womb to Denise Richards’ care?

Compare coverage of Sheen’s meltdown to that of Drake-lover Amanda Bynes or an umbrella-wielding Britney Spears and it doesn’t take long to see the double standard when it comes to celebrity meltdowns. At the same time Sheen was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, Lindsay Lohan appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a piece that painstakingly detailed Lohan’s substance abuse issues and legal troubles. It also made frequent reference to her haggard appearance and questioned whether she would ever, ever get her once promising career back on track. The verdict: no. Sheen #winning. Lohan #tragic.

But Sheen’s not the only one benefiting from the media’s double standard. Once squeaky clean pop star Justin Bieber has had a DUI arrest, disrespected Bill Clinton while peeing in a restaurant mop bucket, egged a neighbour’s house, been photographed sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel and sparked a US petition to deport him. He also wants to change his name to Bizzle, which is not technically a crime, just kind of a crime against humanity.

Media coverage of Bieber largely downplays the severity of his troubles, chalking them up to growing pains as the singer transitions into adulthood and sheds his Bieber skin to become Bizzle. Like Bieber, both Bynes and Lohan started out as child stars, but their troubles are rarely attributed to growing up, instead the media focuses on their mental state or their drug use. At least Bieber is allowed to grow up. If the media had their way Miley Cyrus would remain in a perpetual state of Hannah Montana.

Despite finding drugs on his tour bus, pilots on his plane having to wear gas masks (is that even safe?) cause the marijuana smoke was so thick and sources close to Bieber—I refuse to make Bizzle happen—concerned about his addiction to Sizzurp (Google it) and pot, Bieber’s substance abuse and troubled behaviour has largely been portrayed as socially acceptable teenage rebellion. Again, none for you Miley.

Writing after Bieber’s recent surrender to Toronto police for allegedly assaulting a limo driver the media wondered if maybe this was all a carefully constructed public relations move or an image rebrand designed to improve Bieber’s bad boy image. Hey, it worked for Sheen—who I would like to point out is worth a reported $125 million (US). The media noted that Bieber’s record sales weren’t what they used to be. Perhaps vandalism and monkey abandonment were just the thing to get the record buying public interested in him again.

For Bieber being a bad boy is good for business. Not so much for Lohan. Her last film The Canyons was largely panned before it even hit theatres. Reviewers seemed unable to separate the Lohan they saw on the big screen with the Lohan they saw on the TMZ small screen. Lohan is definitely not the worst thing about The Canyons—next time perhaps the director could avoid hate filming his actors or people could remember that Bret Easton Ellis-penned characters are largely vapid and often laughable—but almost every review focussed on Lohan’s performance and never missed an opportunity to refer to her as “embattled actress Lindsay Lohan” or “troubled startlet Lindsay Lohan.” Chris Brown is always just Chris Brown not “Rihanna beater Chris Brown” or “violent misogynist Chris Brown” or “serial douchebag Chris Brown.”

Even if being a bad girl can be good for business the media is quick to remind us that this fame and success could vanish at any minute. During her meltdown days Spears made some questionable choices—shaving her head, marrying Kevin Federline, hanging out with Paris Hilton, just to name a few—that the media will never let her forget. Despite media concern over her post-meltdown career, Spears continues to top the charts, judge The X Factor and headline a two-year Vegas residency. Despite this, the majority of her media coverage never fails to mention her quickie marriages and rehab visits and suggests that another meltdown might be waiting just right around the corner.

And then there’s Shia LaBeouf. Where do we even start? If you’re just joining the LaBeouf crazy train already in progress he’s been plagiarizing people, punching people, walking out on press conferences while plagiarizing people, punching people at bars, fighting with Alec Baldwin and just generally behaving bizarrely. Rumours of substance abuse have long plagued LaBeouf. He generally brushes them off as “method acting” or blames others for not understanding his intensity (read: love of the sauce).

LaBeouf’s latest stunt involves his announcement that he is retiring from acting, followed by an appearance at the Berlin Film Fest for the premiere of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac sporting a paper bag over his head with “I’m Not Famous Anymore” scrawled on it. It turns out this was all part of—wait for it—a performance art piece called #IAMSORRY that LaBeouf was mounting in Los Angeles. The performance involves LaBeouf sitting silently in a dark room with the paper bag over his head and various mementos from his career; including Indiana Jones’ crystal skull and a Transformers action figures. I give his show three 2009 Joaquin Phoenix’s out of five. Can’t LaBeouf just join General Hospital like James Franco did?

Media coverage of LaBeouf’s meltdown in the name of art has largely focussed on his eccentricity—there’s those zany antics again—and his valuable contribution to the dialogue around performance art. One media outlet even gathered a panel of performance artists to discuss LaBeouf’s work with one going so far as to say: “he’s starting a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had.” Way to go, Even Stevens—LaBeouf was a child Disney star too, but we don’t get reminded of this nearly as much as we do with Miley.

By embracing his performance art angle the media legitimizes LaBeouf’s bizarre antics. There’s no mention of his mental state. No mention of whether his career will ever recover. Media coverage of Bynes’ meltdown focused largely on her physical appearance, commenting on what she wore and how much her appearance had changed—and not in a good way—since her “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” days in 2006. Media rarely comment on LaBeouf’s appearance or commented on Phoenix’s I’m Still Here appearance, despite the fact that both of them are definitely less dashing as performance artists.

While the media regularly updates us on Sheen, Bynes has received little post-meltdown coverage. She’s doing better—having spent time in rehab and away from Twitter—but the media only likes a redemption story if there’s a male protagonist. Bynes only gets the meltdown and then she’s tossed aside. And while the Bynes story has a happy ending, that’s not always the case. If Lohan or Bynes were to die they would get a media circus of Whitney Houston proportions not the respectful coverage afforded Philip Seymour Hoffman or Heath Ledger.

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and that Lindsay’s actually been punking us all this time. Soon she’ll announce it’s all been one big performance art piece. If she did, the media would no doubt accuse her of stealing LaBeouf’s paper bag.

Vanity Fair, October 2010; Rolling Stone, June 21 2012

Oh god, not this joker again. These are the first words that enter my head when I see the new issue of Rolling Stone on the newsstand. The cover features a haggard Charlie Sheen. He looks like a cross between a chain-smoking bobble head and a contestant vying for first place in a Keith Richards look-alike contest. It’s certainly not pretty.

The story promises me “a week on the edge with Hollywood’s last wild man.” Haven’t we already been on the edge with this guy? For what felt like way, way longer than a week? Who can forget the wild man and all his tiger blood and torpedos of truth and goddesses and winning. Was he back? Please, no.

The story starts out with a lovely anecdote about Sheen drinking and hitting on a girl who previously auditioned for the role of his 15-year-old daughter on his new show. The classy train continues on to the station from there. The story updates us on what Sheen’s been doing since his much publicized warlock-themed meltdown in 2011, which started with Sheen taking on CBS and ended with him setting a Guinness world record for Twitter followers, and negotiating merchandising and licensing deals before embarking on a concert tour.

The Rolling Stone article doesn’t do Sheen an injustice, in fact quite the opposite. It mentions his failure to get a “conventional grip on his personal life” and downplays his many violent attacks on women. He’s referred to as a “ruthless negotiator” whose actions could be considered “heroic.” Someone who has never made excuses for what he’s doing. Seriously, Rolling Stone? The magazine even goes so far as to credit his crazy catch phrases like “tiger blood” and “warlock” to his love of films like Apocalypse Now and Jaws. Wait, he’s not crazy! He’s just a lover of film.

But it seems Rolling Stone couldn’t build their summer douche bag special issue around Sheen alone so they also included an interview where we get to go deep with John Mayer and his regrets. Referring to ex Jessica Simpson as “sexual napalm,” making really racist comments, breaking Taylor Swift’s heart, unleashing “Your Body is a Wonderland” on an unsuspecting world; it seems there’s a lot for Mayer to apologize for. Not to worry, Rolling Stone gives him ample column inches to apologize and talk about what a changed man he is.

The interview left me with the sense that I should feel sorry for Mayer and his shutdown Twitter account. So misunderstood. So remorseful. So changed. I half expected to turn the page and find a piece celebrating the wonder that is Chris Brown. Oh wait, that’s what the Grammys are for.

It’s certainly not news that there’s a double standard, especially in Hollywood, when it comes to men and women behaving badly. The same week the Rolling Stone issue hit newsstands Lindsay Lohan was all over the media again for crashing her car, allegedly attempting to cover up crashing her car, and for paramedics being called to her hotel room when it was feared she was unconscious. She was really just asleep and didn’t hear people knocking on her hotel room door. Thank god that in real life paramedics don’t show up every time someone hits the snooze button a few too many times. If that were the case, paramedics would be at my house every morning.

Was she unconscious from drugs? How long until she drops dead? Will she ever get her career back? Surely she can’t think a Lifetime movie about Elizabeth Taylor is going to resurrect her career? What happened to the cute girl from Mean Girls? What a mess Lohan is! How many different ways can we find to talk about what a mess Lohan is? It was the usual TMZ-style reporting which might as well have been sponsored by the Lindsay Lohan Celebrity Death Watch Commemorative Calendar.

When Sheen goes off the rails (cocaine or otherwise) he’s a rock star who is speaking the truth and sticking it to that evil Hollywood machine—the same machine that made him the highest paid sitcom actor for wearing ugly bowling shirts and playing a really, really, really thinly veiled version of himself.

When Lohan goes off the rails (cocaine or otherwise) she’s the little girl lost, the, pardon my French, fuck up, with no hope of ever getting her life or her career back on track.

The media delights in watching Lohan fall further and further—and helping her to do so—without ever giving her the same shot at redemption that a Sheen or a Mayer get. In October 2010 Vanity Fair ran a cover story on Lindsay Lohan—entitled “Adrift.” Nine months later they ran a profile on Charlie Sheen—entitled “Charlie Sheen’s War.” The Sheen story was newsworthy for several reasons, one of which being that Sheen wanted to be paid a million dollars and have final story approval. He didn’t get either, but he really didn’t need approval because he doesn’t come across all that bad in the piece. Sure it talks about his love of porn stars, his 1998 cocaine overdose and his role in the Heidi Fleiss trial, but it also talks about how he “redefined the internet,” how he helped actor Tom Sizemore with his addiction and manages to never delve too deep into Sheen’s history of misogyny and violence against women. Let’s not forget this is the man who once threatened to put his wife’s head in a box and send it to her mother. Oh, that zany Charlie! What antics!

Compare this to the Lohan cover story which spends the opening paragraphs describing how crappy Lohan looks before descending into questions of “what went wrong?” and “is it too late?” Again and again in the piece Lohan has to defend herself with the writer never seeming to believe her or offer a shot at redemption. It repeatedly mentions how her reputation is in tatters and tries to find answers to why Lohan is so, well, adrift. In Sheen’s war there’s still the prospect he could win. Lohan, well, she doesn’t stand a chance.