And now he's Ultratune's new front man, Charlie sheen
A number of news outlets have reported on our letter calling for the Immigration Minister to revoke the visa of serial abuser Charlie Sheen. Two of them in particular stand in stark contrast to one another.
The Gold Coast bulletin featured comments from Ultratune boss Sean Buckley. The car service company, known for its use of sexual objectification and sexist stereotypes in advertising has hired Charlie Sheen to be the front man for its next round of 'controversial' ads. Here's how Buckley summed up Charlie Sheen's two decades long history of violence against women.
“I loved Two and a Half Men. He went through a bad time, went a bit crazy but he’s admitted all that. He’s making a comeback, Hollywood will forgive him and in the meantime we’ve reached out to him,”
“In Australia, we are a very forgiving culture, we give people a chance to fess up and then give them another chance.”
It's not unusual for wealthy, powerful men to defend and minimise - or 'forgive' - the actions of other wealthy, powerful men, or to claim that they've "changed." Anyone familiar with Harvey Weinstein and the #metoo movement will have seen how this works out for women.
Unfortunately there are many Australian women who don't have the privilege of 'forgiving' Charlie Sheen. According to Counting Dead Women, at the time of writing 56 women have been violently killed just this year. They had the misfortune of encountering a violent man just like Charlie Sheen. Perhaps a man who had convinced her he's changed.
But that doesn't matter to Sean Buckley, because none of this affects him.
The editor of Whimn.com.au however, published a strong article today condemning Charlie Sheen for his history of violence against women. Opening with "This is a man who smashed his then-girlfriend’s face into a marble floor" Melissa Shedden argued that given our domestic violence crisis, Australia should have nothing to do with Sheen. Its worth a read.
In this era of escalating domestic violence, situational awareness angst and social strife, what Australia most definitely does not need is to fund the opinions of Charlie Sheen, a man who has a terrifying two-decade long history of violence against women.
Sheen is set to tour Australia for the first time next month, with his show, An Evening With Charlie Sheen, hosted by Richard Wilkins, profiting from spilling the beans on his tumultuous time in the spotlight.
And leading the chorus imploring the government to cancel Sheen’s visa is activist group Collective Shout, arguing it sends the wrong message about violence against women.
Described on the website selling tickets to the Sydney and Melbourne shows as “a truly unique opportunity to get up close and personal with Hollywood Royalty, and pop culture icon Charlie Sheen,” what this points to is that if you’re a famous wealthy white man who will sit down with our ‘Dickie’, we’ll turn a blind eye on your horrific rap sheet.
What will happen when they take to the stage next weekend, we can only imagine, trading chuckles and anecdotes about benders, inflated salaries and after-party hook-ups, and glorifying bad boy antics while the burning question – ‘have you ever been violent with a woman Charlie?’ – goes unanswered.
Once the highest-paid actor in TV, earning $1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men, Sheen was fired from the show in 2010, for slamming the sitcom’s creator in a highly publicised meltdown. That began his epic crash and burn at the start of 2011. Or did it?
No, the ‘Sheen Dream’ was over decades before, a monster of a man with a sickening history of brutality, control and disrespect, towards the women in his life.
Read the entire article at Whimn.com.au
Add your name to our open letter Collective Shout calls on Immigration Minister to revoke serial abuser Charlie Sheen's visa
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