Charlie Sheen Debacle Underscores Hollywood’s Apathy Towards Violence Against Women

What’s worse: Calling your boss a clown, or beating and threatening to kill a woman?

If you’re the producers of Two and a Half Men, it’s the former. Insulting Chuck Lorre got Sheen kicked off the show. These are the same fellas who recently looked the other way when Sheen pulled a knife on his wife, or choked an adult actress. And from an ethical standpoint that’s troubling, says David Carr of the NY Times:

We can all nod and wink and say “it’s Hollywood, what do you expect?” CBS and Time Warner may be in the entertainment business, but they are both publicly traded companies with shareholders, corporate ethics policies and, one presumes, many female employees who don’t particularly care to see a highly paid employee (Mr. Sheen, between his share of syndication and a salary of $1.2 million per episode, makes enough to put him at the top of the food chain in most of corporate America) continually threaten to use women as punching bags.

It’s also worth noting that when these executives hired Sheen eight years ago, his long history of legal troubles for violence against women was no secret. Jezebel has compiled a rundown of allegations of Sheen abusing women, dating back to 1990 when he shot then-fiancee Kelly Preston. And these are just the incidents we know of – intimate partner abuse often goes unreported. With a rap sheet like that, would you hire this man?