Charlie Sheen

Born into wealth to a famous (and talented) dad, Martin, Charlie has had to endure a life of privilege and riches without doing much to earn it. Sure, he starred in the 1986 Oscar-winner Platoon and is today the highest paid star on TV, but he's also a freelance girl-beater, public drunk and, more recently, blathering idiot.

The past two weeks have seen a very public meltdown by Mr. Sheen that vies with the Libyan civil war headlines: lawsuits, a million followers on Twitter, losing his job on the show Two A Half Men, accusations of anti-Semitism, and threats of lawsuits. Did I miss anything?

I admire Martin Sheet. I love Platoon. Hell, I even like Emilio Estevez, but Charlie keeps letting me down. Chuck, you have everything in the world, so why do you insist on being a complete asshole?

Maybe that's the problem: he has everything in the world.

However, there's another dimension to all this: Charlie is on every American news channel, not to mention countless hits on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. All this media attention reminds me of the grotesque ending of Billy Wilder's savage, yet brilliant take on Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard:

Sure, Charlie is a screwed-up mess of a human being, but what about the rest of us who are witnessing his dissolution on our TVs and iPads like spectators at a car crash? Are we culpable?