Sheen's Image: Is public opinion based on fact and reason, or is it essentially a matter of intuition?
Charlie Sheen. Michael Vick. Tiger Woods. Martha Stewart. Mel Gibson. The boardrooms of major corporations worldwide are filled with the haunting echoes of fallen brands, tarnished through celebrity image. In some cases, the brand is the celebrity and the celebrity is the brand. In other instances, the celebrity has staked an interest in a company or product, representing a safe, appropriate vanguard symbol for the sponsor.
I’m always fascinated by the reaction of the general public to celebrities who have in some way fallen. We see certain high profile athletes like Michael Vick who, although he has worked diligently and tried to redeem his image and revitalize his career, continues to suffer for the actions of his past. There’s still an incredible amount of vitriol toward Vick, if even a small portion of letters and comments online are any indication of public sentiment.
On the other hand, stars like Charlie Sheen appear to have been given limitless boundaries for debacles and debauchery, only to earn the sympathy of many fans as he tackles rehabilitation for the second time. The highest paid actor on television is star of the highest rated comedy; yet, he can’t seem to even complete a full season of work. Costs to the network are estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s eerie how much art can imitate life. An article by Dave Itzkoff and Bill Carter in the Jan 28 New York Times recounts a recent scene from the show, “Two and a Half Men.” In it, Mr. Sheen plays Charlie, a womanizer who is often shown having a drink. In one episode in 2008 Mr. Sheen’s character tells his nephew Jake, who has a hangover, “You know, your body is sending you a message,” namely that alcohol is “poison.”
“Then why do you drink?” Jake asks. “Because I have things inside of me that I need killed,” Charlie replies.
Endorsement watching in the professional “trade” media is sport, a soap opera-like reportage of deals made and gone awry. Talk about fair-weather friends. Nike has revoked the endorsement deals of more than a few athletes. In 2003, a 19 year-old hotel employee in Colorado accused Kobe Bryant of sexual assault. Nike dropped him from their endorsement contract, as they did with Michael Vick in 2007. By October 2009, after Vick was reinstated into the NFL, Nike resigned him. “Mike has a long-standing, great relationship with Nike, and he looks forward to continuing that relationship,” said his agent, Joel Segal.
Ben Roethlisberger will be playing for a world championship in the Superbowl this weekend, yet just a few months ago he and his agent were battling accusations and an investigation for sexual assault.
Michael Jackson was celebrated, eulogized and mourned worldwide after his tragic death. The brand of the King of Pop is stronger than ever before. In fact, after his death, a prominent entertainment manager immediately shared with me that Jackson would be worth more dead than alive. He is thought of with overwhelming fondness and appeal; gone are the recollections and public ire from his court battles for accusations of molesting or sleeping with young boys. No one believed his testimony — at least, that was my anecdotal recollection. Now, the brand of Michael Jackson has been retired to rest with the elite iconic images of James Dean, Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe.
Why are some celebrities supported through their struggles and given multiple chances, while others are held accountable for their entire lives for one ill-fated decision? It doesn’t appear to have anything to do with their profession, since some of the celebrities in question have been athletes, some actors or musicians and still others, politicians.
In January 2009, after a photo emerged showing the Olympic record-setting champion Michael Phelps inhaling from a marijuana pipe, he was suspended from competition for three months by the sport’s national governing organization, USA Swimming. Phelps also lost his endorsement deal with Kellogg’s.
Hugh Grant was discovered in a sexual act with a prostitute in the back of a car on Sunset Boulevard. It was 1995, and he had just finished the movie, Nine Months, which was two weeks from debuting. He chose to keep his scheduled interview on the The Tonight Show and famously said, “I think you know in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing, and I did a bad thing. And there you have it.” That act alone seemed to redeem his image almost instantly.
Or how about Jimmy the Greek? He was fired from CBS Sports on January 16, after being taped at a restaurant in Washington D.C. saying that blacks were better athletes because they had been bred that way during slavery. He later expressed remorse for the comment, but his personal image never recovered from the public perception that he was a racist. His career was over, even as close associates and friends persisted for many years in their adamant claim that he had never expressed a racist remark or viewpoint privately in his entire career.
David Hasselhoff showed the world just how much of a struggle his life was with addiction in 2007, when a video hit YouTube showing him inebriated as he lay on the floor, eating a sandwich. He became a joke for many late night talk shows, but his brand image never really incurred much more than sympathy and understanding.
In 1991, Raul Reubens was arrested in a Sarasota, Florida theatre for masturbating. His hit show, Playhouse, was canceled by CBS and Toys-R-Us stopped selling his toys. Many celebrities like Bill Cosby and Cyndi Lauper spoke out on his behalf, but despite a handful of appearances as Pee-wee Herman, Reubens chose not to continue in that role for nearly two decades. He returned to costume with his show at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, and later on Broadway on November 11, 2010.
Actors like Alex Baldwin and Mel Gibson have made news for their irate behavior and public meltdowns. Mel Gibson tarnished his image beyond repair when he was stopped for speeding one evening in 2006 and arrested for DUI. His troubles never really ended as he has spent the last few years earning an entrenched brand of misogyny, racism, alcohol abuse and volatile behavior, with few quiet respites away from the news.
In 1998, Bill Clinton came out and admitted his transgressions with 22-year old White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a broadcast that mesmerized an entire nation and hundreds of millions of viewers.
With dizzying speed, Mark Sanford discovered that he could not finesse the news organizations with a story of hiking on the campaign trail. John Edwards worked diligently to manage his own travails and tribulations, after it was reported in The National Enquirer that he had fathered a child through an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2007. His personal brand since those events has been a complex story, as his wife Elizabeth fell ill and passed away recently.
On March 2004, Martha Stewart was found guilty of securities fraud and obstruction of justice, serving 5 months in prison. She rejuvenated her career beautifully in the months and years after that trying experience.
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What personality type publicly earns our trust and patience, even as they repeatedly make poor judgments and suffer from addictions? And why do we extend so little sympathy to certain branded celebrities like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan?
One thing is certain: The number of tarnished celebrity brands is increasing, due mostly to the accessibility of media channels and content. The scandals have increased, but in reality the dysfunctions have probably always existed. From infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, to malfeasance, and from sex addictions and rants of unacceptable opinion to illegal activities like dog-fighting, we’ll continue to see the parade of public tragedy posted daily across the real-time, ubiquitous media channels of our lives.
We’ll watch, we’ll think, and make up our own minds about what is true, what is contrived and what — or who — we choose to believe in. But in the end, doesn’t it seem to be more art than science, more intuition than reason. . . more of an instinct than a rational, considered decision?