On winning and losing it

I like to think of myself as someone with a good sense of humor. I “get” comedy stylings ranging from Andy Kauffman’s violent vignettes of discomfort to Andy Samberg’s dormitory humor. Lucy and Ethel to Roseanne. Carlin, Chappelle and Cho? Seen them all live. Okay, I do draw the line of funny with certain figures—I can’t stand that man with the grumpy puppets or Dane Cook or Larry the Cable Guy, but I can definitely understand how these comedians could be funny to somebody else. Do I wonder about those people? Yes. But I withhold judgment as best I can. Still, in all my benevolent comedic open-mindedness I fail to be wooed by the most recent comedic trend: laughing at and loving our nation’s favorite winner, Charlie Sheen.

As we all know, since we live in, like, the world, Mr. Sheen has some problems that only a mind like his can spin into “wins.” This actor/partier once known for a string of hit movies, a cash cow CBS show, a high-profile Hollywood family and out-of-control if not abusive relationships with women is now a bizarre and erratic one-man entertainment machine. Each day people watch, cameras crowd, everyone anticipating the next verbal morsel—what crazy thing will he say? What morning show or late night talk show will he storm? What could possibly top tiger blood, warlocks, two girlfriends and Sober Valley Lodge? Hungry, starving (for what? I wonder), everyone eats it up, gorging on the man and his ranting ramblings and somehow everyone remains hungry for more.

But me, I don’t get the punchline. Where everyone else may zero in on the joke of it all, the epic hilarity, the constant surprise, I see the far away look in his too-black eyes. I see a face, weirdly gaunt, alternately stretched and crumpled into a rubbery sallow mask. He looks sick, malnourished, itchy and sleepless.

He looks like my mom.

My undiagnosed but sick-with-schizophrenia mom. She’s who I see when I look at Charlie and she makes it hard for me to laugh.

Erratic ranting with delusions of grandeur? I’ve heard that schtick since age 8. That set is tired. Zany adventures? Oh, I’ve gone for a “car ride” that suddenly turned into a 6 hour trip or kidnapping—depending on how you look at it. Let me tell you, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants Sheen-style mental illness rollercoaster is thrilling, but not in a good way. It’s draining. It’s terrifying. It’s maddening. It’s sad.

This is not to say that it absolutely can’t be funny. I would never say that. My sense of humor could very well be the thing that’s kept me a fairly functional human being, you know, for a grad student.

Laughing is channeled out of our fear and discomfort. It breaks the tension, transforms pain into ridiculous pleasure. What’s problematic in the Sheen situation for me is the cheapness of the joke and the utter disregard for the humanity of the figure in question. I can’t help but feel that every “news” show that hands money over to our fool du jour and sits him in front of a camera is killing him a little. Each manager that supports him, each ticket sold to his already sold-out comedy tour (oh, yeah, that’s happening) is just actualizing and strengthening the hold of the manic or psychotic delusions he so needs to cure himself of. I feel like we’re pointing and laughing at someone who can’t help himself and that makes me feel dirty and ashamed for all of us.

Would we so thoroughly lambast and laugh at a cancer patient in a similar fashion? Ha, ha! Low white blood cell count! Or the handicapped? Nice “Olympics” loser!

I can’t help but think that our country is still pretty deeply in denial about the breadth and reach of mental illness and this is partly behind our reaction to the Sheen circus. If we’re laughing because his sickness is scary, his empty eyes jolting, I get it. If we’re laughing because we all harbor ridiculous pain, incredible loss, stupid inequity, and Charlie, for a few seconds a day, takes the burden of being butt of the joke off of our own aching backs, I get that, too. But if we’re laughing more as the weeks go on and on because it’s easy, because we can’t be bothered to care about other people, because we’re too dazed and confused to empathize, sympathize just a tiny bit with a very sick man or his family, then I’m left to wonder who the joke is really on and I hope we have the courage to be better, smarter and at the very least, funnier than that.