Photo via Costumeish/costumeish.com

If you’re looking for a last-minute Halloween costume idea, sadly, Parisian Heist Robbery Victim is no longer an option. If you’re looking for an offensive costume you’ll just have to go as Donald Trump and his merry band of women-respecting hombres. If you don’t get the biggest Kit Kat complain loudly and repeatedly about how Halloween is rigged and be sure to grope every witch and grab every black cat along the way. 

The Parisian Heist Robbery Victim costume didn’t specifically mention Kim Kardashian or her traumatic October robbery—when the reality star was bound, gagged, and had a gun held to her head by robbers who made off with $10-million worth of jewellery—but it really didn’t need to. The $69.99 costume featured a long black wig, short white robe—what she was wearing when the crime took place—requisite large black sunglasses, a gag, rope, and a $4-million ring. The go-to look for a mother of two afraid for her life and terrified she was going to be raped or killed.

Costumeish.com, the makers of the awful costume, pulled it from the company’s website after complaints that the costume was offensive and mocked the violent incident. Sadly, it was not only the costume that was in poor taste. Following the incident, Kardashian was accused of faking the robbery, using it as a publicity stunt, or staging it so she could commit insurance fraud. She was criticized for flaunting her flashy lifestyle and bling ring on social media and for making it easy to track her movements via her numerous posts on Instagram. Even Karl Lagerfeld lashed out at Kardashian for constantly showing off her wealth. And if there’s one thing to be said about Lagerfeld it’s that he lives an extremely understated existence. The fashion designer really blends in.

@TheTorontoSun The Kim Kardashian robbery was a hoax. It never happened. It was a publicity stunt.

— John Harlow (@MysticKnight982) October 22, 2016

@KimKardashian held at gunpoint is this real or publicity stunt you never can tell these days.

— Darren-John Northall (@DAZrazzle85) October 3, 2016

not really buying this ‘kim kardashian was robbed of $10 MM in jewelry at gunpoint’ story. smells of insurance fraud / publicity stunt…

— Tom Quinn (@MQuinnton) October 3, 2016

The fact that the Kardashian robbery was repeatedly called a hoax and her pre- and post-robbery behaviour was carefully scrutinized served as just another painful reminder of pop culture’s gender bias when it comes to violence. Exclusive crime scene photos were published of Kardashian resting her internet-breaking butt on a couch and calmly Facetiming someone as police searched her Paris apartment and interviewed witnesses. Apparently, she should have been running hysterically around the apartment as women are meant to do. “Kim’s Story Doesn’t Add Up,” “No Sign of Struggles or Injuries,” and “Left $10 Million in Jewellery on the Counter” screamed the headlines. If Kim Kardashian was a man, the coverage would have been very different. I doubt anyone would ever accuse Kayne West of insurance fraud or faking a robbery, except maybe Taylor Swift.

As if the tabloid coverage wasn’t bad enough, internet and social media reaction to the robbery was cruel and dismissive. Twitter seemed to think taste in television programming is directly related to empathy and found it hard to embrace the possibility that one could not enjoy keeping up with the Kardashians and still think what happened to Kim was horrible. It’s okay, Twitter, supporting her won’t make me judge you. I get it you’re a big fan of PBS. Relax, I think you’re totally high brow.

One only needs to look at the recent coverage of Brangelina’s divorce to see pop culture’s double standard further played out. The violence that apparently led to Angelina Jolie filing for divorce has largely been downplayed by the media. There was allegedly a physical altercation on an overseas flight involving Brad Pitt and the oldest of the couple’s brood, Maddox. Pitt also apparently pissed on the side of a building upon deplaning and hijacked a golf cart to speed away from the plane. Trying to distance themselves from an air travel experience as quickly as possible, stars really are just like us!

Coverage of the incident and the divorce has been largely pro-Pitt with Jolie described as a “wife from hell,” “unstable and manipulative,” and a “liar.” Also, their sexless marriage drove him to cheat and he might be getting back with Jennifer Aniston because she’s just been hanging out with her Aveeno and Smart Water for the last 11 years waiting for Pitt. Have you seen the video of her husband Justin Theroux jogging in track pants? I think Jen is doing just fine.

The media never misses an opportunity to remind us of Jolie’s past drug use—heroin! Billy Bob Thornton musk!—and how she used to wear vials of blood around her neck. She is repeatedly referred to in the coverage as a “wild child,” which is pop culture speak for a grown woman who does not conform to their standards and behave as society would like her to. (See also: 1990s Drew Barrymore, 2007 Britney Spears, all the time Courtney Love, Miley Cyrus, and Lindsay Lohan.)

US Weekly also criticized Jolie’s humanitarian efforts and work, calling it a calculated image makeover and raising suspicion that all those orphanage visits, adoptions, and UN work was just some elaborate ruse to make her seem like a good person when she’s actually just a monster set on destroying Pitt’s life and launching an elaborate smear campaign.

Tabloids also reminded us of Jolie’s dating history which included, gasp, women. Implying bisexuals are shifty liars was a popular narrative during actress Amber Heard’s recent split from Johnny Depp. Heard’s stories of Depp’s abuse and violence were repeatedly questioned and she was called a “liar” and a “gold digger.” The biggest tragedy of the story seemed to be that Depp had to change the “Slim” tattoo he got in Heard’s honour to “Scum.” When it comes to violence against women, everyone knows tattoos are the real victims.

While negative coverage of Kardashian’s robbery continues and shows no sign of ending soon, positive pop culture coverage of male celebrities and violence continues to be the norm. When Chris Brown was arrested this summer for assault with a deadly weapon stories focussed on the credibility of his female victim, how the arrest was a set up, and mentioned Brown’s constitutional right to bear arms. Apparently, everyone forgot about Brown’s 2009 arrest for assaulting then girlfriend Rihanna or his raging anger issues. While gossip sites remember every Lindsay Lohan DUI and Chateau Marmont late night, Brown gets a pop culture hall pass. Brown even claimed he was the victim of a race war and started tweeting #blacklivesmatter. That PR move proved to be worse than the sum total of the singer’s musical output.

And speaking of Lohan, in August photos surfaced of the actress physically fighting on a beach with her fiancé. Lohan received no support from the tabloids who described the incident as a “play fight,” which is certainly not the impression one gets when they look at the photos of a clearly struggling Lohan. The actress later expressed fear that her fiancé was going to throw acid in her face and she was scared for her safety. Celebrity gossip sites continued to Regina George Lohan, implying she deserves little sympathy because of her wild child ways. Stories implied that Lohan deserved it because of the poor box office performance of I Know Who Killed Me or because she previously struggled with drugs and alcohol.

Despite the offensive costume and internet backlash, a spokesperson for the Kardashians has assured us Kim is shaken, but slowly recovering from the robbery. Filming on the reality star’s show was not taking place at the time of the incident so if you’re looking to see it covered on the small screen you’ll just have to settle for TMZ. Or give Karl Lagerfeld a call.

Illustration by Dave Donald

Media loves celebrity redemption stories—if you’re a man

Lindsay Lohan’s 2015 Super Bowl ad for car insurance company Esurance generated more pre-game controversy than a million Deflategates. Admittedly, Lohan’s had issues with hitting people and things with her car, as well as with remembering to bring a valid driver’s licence, and not cocaine, to her next road trip. But the internet reacted like Lohan had travelled to the home of every Esurance customer, made them watch I Know Who Killed Me, raised their insurance rates, and then killed their entire family. Comments also turned to Lohan’s appearance (haggard, botoxed, photoshopped on Instagram) and her mental health (crazy, unstable, photoshopped on Instagram). The Lohanaissance failed—instead she was responsible for Esurance’s downfall. You’re welcome, Allstate.

It would be much easier for Lohan if she were a man. If you’re a male celebrity we’re quick to forget and forgive your bad deeds. Post train wreck, the careers of male celebrities recover and they’re free to become the face of auto insurance—or whatever else they want—for years to come.

Male celebrities have always had success rehabilitating their images. Celebrity Damage Control profiles celebrities as they attempt to get their lives, brand, and earning potential back after potential career killers like assaulting women, cheating on women, and being Mickey Rourke. The show’s episode guide is a reminder of how rarely celebrity redemption stories cast a female lead. Sean Penn, Tiger Woods and Michael Vick are among the males profiled; Martha Stewart is the only woman to appear in the first eight episodes.

The media has a short attention span when it comes to punishing male celebrities. Take successful humanitarian image makeover recipient Sean Penn. Before he became an Ambassador in Haiti, won countless awards, and single-handedly saved every Hurricane Katrina survivor, Penn was charged with assaulting his first wife Madonna, after tying her to a chair and beating her for nine hours. Good luck, Charlize Theron!

The media rarely discusses Penn’s violence. When they do he’s described as “difficult” or as a “reformed bad boy.” The focus is on his art; not his infidelity, his violent past or—thank god—Shanghai Surprise. The reformed bad boy image is certainly not exclusive to Penn. We see it repeatedly, most recently in December when Mark Wahlberg applied for an official pardon for racist violent crimes committed when he was teenager. These crimes are rarely mentioned when discussing Wahlberg’s acting work, and even when they are, they’re often attributed to Marky Mark. This is called the Eminem clause and enables you to attribute all the behaviour you don’t want to claim responsibility for to an alter ego. Enter stage left, Slim Shady.

Male celebrity entitlement came closer to home when comedian Bill Cosby—accused of drugging and raping 24 women at last count—performed a three-night Ontario tour in January. Despite protests and hecklers, audiences were not deterred, choosing instead to focus on pudding pops and The Cosby Show. Audience members even jumped to Cosby’s defence yelling “we love you Bill” when protestors threatened to derail the show.

It’s certainly easier to condemn a celebrity when you don’t like their work. It’s a lot harder when it’s an artist you like. The media is more than happy to accept and promote Bill Murray’s image as a likeable, fun guy—the karaoke crasher everybody loves to love. I recently discovered Murray was on the list of male celebrities accused of violence toward women, something rarely mentioned when the media discuss the actor. Among many things, Murray’s ex-wife accused him of assault and uttering death threats. As a big fan, Murray could fart the alphabet into a travel mug and I would be running for my wallet to shower him with cash and old ATM receipts.

I’m not alone in this. When news broke of Murray’s past, internet commenters rushed to his defence. Murray’s real crime seemed to be his responsibility for Ghostbusters 3 never happening, which is apparently everything that is wrong in the world (and the feminist reboot will suck because the ladies’ periods will repel the ghosts rendering bustin’ impossible).

Compare the media’s treatment of Penn or Murray, with treatment of Lohan. Her every bad deed, every bad performance, every bad choice is exhaustively chronicled, never to be forgotten. In the court of public opinion there is no disconnect between Lohan the actress and Lohan the trainwreck. She could be as likeable as Murray, giving impromptu bachelor party speeches till the end of time, but the media will never let us forget every DUI she has ever had.

Winona Ryder never beat Madonna with a baseball but, but in 2001 she was arrested for shoplifting. The media has never let her career recover—even though Saks Fifth Avenue loss prevention was arguably the only victim. It was what everybody wanted to talk about when she was promoting her new film at this year’s Sundance. Or, they focused on how great Ryder was in 1988’s Beetlejuice, a movie she made when she was 17—just as critics often talk about how great Lohan was in Mean Girls. The media keeps the actresses stuck in a pre-trainwreck time of innocence, forever reminding us of that time when they were young, successful, and had it all. The media will not allow them to make mistakes, to recover from them or to have a second act. They had their chance and they blew it. Not even getting Murray to commit to Ghostbusters 3 could redeem them.

Collage by Dave Donald

Inside media’s troubling gender-biased coverage of celebrity meltdowns

Charlie Sheen took thinking outside the bun to a whole new level in July when he drunkenly wandered around a Taco Bell drive thru greeting fellow fast food visitors with “Sorry I am so fucking hammered.” Video of the incident soon made the rounds and the winning warlock was once again making headlines. As it did with the actor’s well-publicized 2011 meltdown, media covered Sheen’s bad behaviour like it was a sitcom—wondering what hilarity and hijinks he would get up to next. Then and now, his substance abuse problems, anti-Semitism, and responsibility for making #winning happen were largely swept under the rug. Little mention was made of his history of violence against
women or his lacklustre parenting record. Instead, Sheen landed a 2012 Rolling Stone cover and made several prime time appearances. He earned reported $1.8 million (U.S.) per episode of Two and a Half Men.

It doesn’t take long to see the double standard when it comes to celebrity meltdowns: Compare coverage of Sheen’s meltdown to that of Drake-lover Amanda Bynes or an umbrella-wielding Britney Spears. At the same time Sheen was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, Lindsay Lohan appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a piece that painstakingly detailed Lohan’s substance abuse issues and legal troubles. It also made frequent reference to her haggard appearance and questioned whether she would ever, ever get her once-promising career back on track. The verdict: no. Sheen #winning. Lohan #tragic.

For bad boys like Sheen being bad is good for business. Not so much for Lohan. Her last film The Canyons was largely panned before it even hit theatres. Reviewers seemed unable to separate the Lohan they saw on the big screen with the Lohan they saw on the TMZ small screen. Lohan is definitely not the worst thing about The Canyons, but almost every review focussed on her performance and never missed an opportunity to refer to her as “embattled actress Lindsay Lohan” or “troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan.” Chris Brown is always just Chris Brown not “Rihanna beater Chris Brown” or “violent misogynist Chris Brown” or “serial douchebag Chris Brown.”

And then there’s Shia LaBeouf. Where do we even start? If you’re just joining the LaBeouf crazy train already in progress: he’s been arrested for disturbing a theatre performance (he didn’t care much for Cabaret); chased a homeless men around Times Square; plagiarized people; punched people; and just generally behaved bizarrely. He announced his retirement from acting—how very 2010 Joaquin Phoenix of him—and then appeared at a film festival sporting a paper bag over his head with “I’m Not Famous Anymore” scrawled on it. It turns out this was all part of a performance art piece called #IAMSORRY. Media coverage of the piece focussed on LaBeouf’s eccentricity and his valuable contribution to the dialogue around performance art. One media outlet even gathered a panel of performance artists to discuss LaBeouf’s work with one going so far as to say: “He’s starting a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had.”

Following his recent booze-fuelled NYC meltdown, the media speculated on whether LaBeouf would head to rehab. He was photographed carrying an AA book which was enough to satisfy bloggers who didn’t question whether LaBeouf was really serious about recovery or if the book was just a PR prop. There was mention of his mental state, but not nearly the coverage of say a 2007 head-shaving Spears. The consensus was that LaBeouf ’s career would recover—just maybe not as a theatre reviewer. Compare this to the seemingly endless column inches devoted to whether Lohan’s career will ever bounce back and speculation that the mean girl now uses her talent to trade blowies for blow.

Media rarely commented on LaBeouf’s appearance, despite the fact that disturbia could be used to refer to one of his films, as well as his approach to personal hygiene. Media coverage of Bynes’ meltdown focused largely on her physical appearance, commenting on what she wore and how much her appearance had changed—and not in a good way. The media regularly updates us on Sheen, while Bynes has received little post-meltdown coverage. Redemption stories
only get coverage when there’s a male protagonist. And while the Bynes story has a happy ending—post rehab she is doing better and has not once asked Drake to murder her vagina—that’s not always the case. If Lohan or Bynes were to die, they would get a media circus of Whitney Houston proportions, not the respectful coverage afforded Philip Seymour Hoffman or Heath Ledger.

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and that Lohan’s actually been punking us all this time. Soon she’ll announce it’s all been one big performance art piece. If she did, the media would no doubt accuse her of stealing LaBeouf’s paper bag and he’d be arrested for disrupting her show.

Lisa Whittington-Hill is the publisher of This Magazine, and like
Shia, she doesn’t care much for Cabaret.

How we imagine an “arty” Shia LeBeouf may look  || By User:Wiki Lon (Own work) [GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

When male celebrities implode on the world stage, they’re arty heroes. When women do it, they’re called “troubled” and worse

Did you miss the recent Valentine’s Day announcement that winning warlock Charlie Sheen is getting married for the fourth time? Maybe you were busy having a life, or watching season two of House of Cards (SO GOOD!) or let your subscription to Winning Warlock Weekly lapse.

Who can blame you after Sheen’s well-publicized 2011 meltdown, or “meltforward” as he called it, complete with truth torpedos, goddesses and weird rants about tiger blood. The media covered Sheen’s meltdown—I refuse to make meltforward happen—like it was a sitcom or comedy tour, wondering what hilarity and hijinx Sheen would get up to next. His history of violence against women, substance abuse, anti-Semitism and responsibility for making #winning happen were largely swept under the rug. Sheen’s behaviour was often described as “antics” or dismissed, as “hey, look Charlie’s being zany again.”

In fact, during his meltdown heyday, Sheen was treated like a rock star. He landed a Rolling Stone cover and made several primetime appearances that provided him ample airtime to explain himself and his behaviour. Sheen was also the highest paid television actor at the time—earning a reported $1.8 million (US) per episode of Two and a Half Men. That kind of cheddar buys a lot of bowling shirts. Sheen’s mental state may have been questioned during his meltdown, but not nearly as much as that of a 2007 meltdown era Britney Spears.

Sheen’s media image hasn’t changed much since 2011. Coverage of his recent engagement largely laughed off his 2011 “antics,” instead focussing on his desire to have children with his new bride. No mention was made of Sheen’s history of domestic violence or lacklustre parenting record. Does this man even have custody of any of his other four children? Do his children just go directly from the womb to Denise Richards’ care?

Compare coverage of Sheen’s meltdown to that of Drake-lover Amanda Bynes or an umbrella-wielding Britney Spears and it doesn’t take long to see the double standard when it comes to celebrity meltdowns. At the same time Sheen was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone, Lindsay Lohan appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in a piece that painstakingly detailed Lohan’s substance abuse issues and legal troubles. It also made frequent reference to her haggard appearance and questioned whether she would ever, ever get her once promising career back on track. The verdict: no. Sheen #winning. Lohan #tragic.

But Sheen’s not the only one benefiting from the media’s double standard. Once squeaky clean pop star Justin Bieber has had a DUI arrest, disrespected Bill Clinton while peeing in a restaurant mop bucket, egged a neighbour’s house, been photographed sneaking out of a Brazilian brothel and sparked a US petition to deport him. He also wants to change his name to Bizzle, which is not technically a crime, just kind of a crime against humanity.

Media coverage of Bieber largely downplays the severity of his troubles, chalking them up to growing pains as the singer transitions into adulthood and sheds his Bieber skin to become Bizzle. Like Bieber, both Bynes and Lohan started out as child stars, but their troubles are rarely attributed to growing up, instead the media focuses on their mental state or their drug use. At least Bieber is allowed to grow up. If the media had their way Miley Cyrus would remain in a perpetual state of Hannah Montana.

Despite finding drugs on his tour bus, pilots on his plane having to wear gas masks (is that even safe?) cause the marijuana smoke was so thick and sources close to Bieber—I refuse to make Bizzle happen—concerned about his addiction to Sizzurp (Google it) and pot, Bieber’s substance abuse and troubled behaviour has largely been portrayed as socially acceptable teenage rebellion. Again, none for you Miley.

Writing after Bieber’s recent surrender to Toronto police for allegedly assaulting a limo driver the media wondered if maybe this was all a carefully constructed public relations move or an image rebrand designed to improve Bieber’s bad boy image. Hey, it worked for Sheen—who I would like to point out is worth a reported $125 million (US). The media noted that Bieber’s record sales weren’t what they used to be. Perhaps vandalism and monkey abandonment were just the thing to get the record buying public interested in him again.

For Bieber being a bad boy is good for business. Not so much for Lohan. Her last film The Canyons was largely panned before it even hit theatres. Reviewers seemed unable to separate the Lohan they saw on the big screen with the Lohan they saw on the TMZ small screen. Lohan is definitely not the worst thing about The Canyons—next time perhaps the director could avoid hate filming his actors or people could remember that Bret Easton Ellis-penned characters are largely vapid and often laughable—but almost every review focussed on Lohan’s performance and never missed an opportunity to refer to her as “embattled actress Lindsay Lohan” or “troubled startlet Lindsay Lohan.” Chris Brown is always just Chris Brown not “Rihanna beater Chris Brown” or “violent misogynist Chris Brown” or “serial douchebag Chris Brown.”

Even if being a bad girl can be good for business the media is quick to remind us that this fame and success could vanish at any minute. During her meltdown days Spears made some questionable choices—shaving her head, marrying Kevin Federline, hanging out with Paris Hilton, just to name a few—that the media will never let her forget. Despite media concern over her post-meltdown career, Spears continues to top the charts, judge The X Factor and headline a two-year Vegas residency. Despite this, the majority of her media coverage never fails to mention her quickie marriages and rehab visits and suggests that another meltdown might be waiting just right around the corner.

And then there’s Shia LaBeouf. Where do we even start? If you’re just joining the LaBeouf crazy train already in progress he’s been plagiarizing people, punching people, walking out on press conferences while plagiarizing people, punching people at bars, fighting with Alec Baldwin and just generally behaving bizarrely. Rumours of substance abuse have long plagued LaBeouf. He generally brushes them off as “method acting” or blames others for not understanding his intensity (read: love of the sauce).

LaBeouf’s latest stunt involves his announcement that he is retiring from acting, followed by an appearance at the Berlin Film Fest for the premiere of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac sporting a paper bag over his head with “I’m Not Famous Anymore” scrawled on it. It turns out this was all part of—wait for it—a performance art piece called #IAMSORRY that LaBeouf was mounting in Los Angeles. The performance involves LaBeouf sitting silently in a dark room with the paper bag over his head and various mementos from his career; including Indiana Jones’ crystal skull and a Transformers action figures. I give his show three 2009 Joaquin Phoenix’s out of five. Can’t LaBeouf just join General Hospital like James Franco did?

Media coverage of LaBeouf’s meltdown in the name of art has largely focussed on his eccentricity—there’s those zany antics again—and his valuable contribution to the dialogue around performance art. One media outlet even gathered a panel of performance artists to discuss LaBeouf’s work with one going so far as to say: “he’s starting a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had.” Way to go, Even Stevens—LaBeouf was a child Disney star too, but we don’t get reminded of this nearly as much as we do with Miley.

By embracing his performance art angle the media legitimizes LaBeouf’s bizarre antics. There’s no mention of his mental state. No mention of whether his career will ever recover. Media coverage of Bynes’ meltdown focused largely on her physical appearance, commenting on what she wore and how much her appearance had changed—and not in a good way—since her “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” days in 2006. Media rarely comment on LaBeouf’s appearance or commented on Phoenix’s I’m Still Here appearance, despite the fact that both of them are definitely less dashing as performance artists.

While the media regularly updates us on Sheen, Bynes has received little post-meltdown coverage. She’s doing better—having spent time in rehab and away from Twitter—but the media only likes a redemption story if there’s a male protagonist. Bynes only gets the meltdown and then she’s tossed aside. And while the Bynes story has a happy ending, that’s not always the case. If Lohan or Bynes were to die they would get a media circus of Whitney Houston proportions not the respectful coverage afforded Philip Seymour Hoffman or Heath Ledger.

I hope it doesn’t come to that, and that Lindsay’s actually been punking us all this time. Soon she’ll announce it’s all been one big performance art piece. If she did, the media would no doubt accuse her of stealing LaBeouf’s paper bag.

Vanity Fair, October 2010; Rolling Stone, June 21 2012

Oh god, not this joker again. These are the first words that enter my head when I see the new issue of Rolling Stone on the newsstand. The cover features a haggard Charlie Sheen. He looks like a cross between a chain-smoking bobble head and a contestant vying for first place in a Keith Richards look-alike contest. It’s certainly not pretty.

The story promises me “a week on the edge with Hollywood’s last wild man.” Haven’t we already been on the edge with this guy? For what felt like way, way longer than a week? Who can forget the wild man and all his tiger blood and torpedos of truth and goddesses and winning. Was he back? Please, no.

The story starts out with a lovely anecdote about Sheen drinking and hitting on a girl who previously auditioned for the role of his 15-year-old daughter on his new show. The classy train continues on to the station from there. The story updates us on what Sheen’s been doing since his much publicized warlock-themed meltdown in 2011, which started with Sheen taking on CBS and ended with him setting a Guinness world record for Twitter followers, and negotiating merchandising and licensing deals before embarking on a concert tour.

The Rolling Stone article doesn’t do Sheen an injustice, in fact quite the opposite. It mentions his failure to get a “conventional grip on his personal life” and downplays his many violent attacks on women. He’s referred to as a “ruthless negotiator” whose actions could be considered “heroic.” Someone who has never made excuses for what he’s doing. Seriously, Rolling Stone? The magazine even goes so far as to credit his crazy catch phrases like “tiger blood” and “warlock” to his love of films like Apocalypse Now and Jaws. Wait, he’s not crazy! He’s just a lover of film.

But it seems Rolling Stone couldn’t build their summer douche bag special issue around Sheen alone so they also included an interview where we get to go deep with John Mayer and his regrets. Referring to ex Jessica Simpson as “sexual napalm,” making really racist comments, breaking Taylor Swift’s heart, unleashing “Your Body is a Wonderland” on an unsuspecting world; it seems there’s a lot for Mayer to apologize for. Not to worry, Rolling Stone gives him ample column inches to apologize and talk about what a changed man he is.

The interview left me with the sense that I should feel sorry for Mayer and his shutdown Twitter account. So misunderstood. So remorseful. So changed. I half expected to turn the page and find a piece celebrating the wonder that is Chris Brown. Oh wait, that’s what the Grammys are for.

It’s certainly not news that there’s a double standard, especially in Hollywood, when it comes to men and women behaving badly. The same week the Rolling Stone issue hit newsstands Lindsay Lohan was all over the media again for crashing her car, allegedly attempting to cover up crashing her car, and for paramedics being called to her hotel room when it was feared she was unconscious. She was really just asleep and didn’t hear people knocking on her hotel room door. Thank god that in real life paramedics don’t show up every time someone hits the snooze button a few too many times. If that were the case, paramedics would be at my house every morning.

Was she unconscious from drugs? How long until she drops dead? Will she ever get her career back? Surely she can’t think a Lifetime movie about Elizabeth Taylor is going to resurrect her career? What happened to the cute girl from Mean Girls? What a mess Lohan is! How many different ways can we find to talk about what a mess Lohan is? It was the usual TMZ-style reporting which might as well have been sponsored by the Lindsay Lohan Celebrity Death Watch Commemorative Calendar.

When Sheen goes off the rails (cocaine or otherwise) he’s a rock star who is speaking the truth and sticking it to that evil Hollywood machine—the same machine that made him the highest paid sitcom actor for wearing ugly bowling shirts and playing a really, really, really thinly veiled version of himself.

When Lohan goes off the rails (cocaine or otherwise) she’s the little girl lost, the, pardon my French, fuck up, with no hope of ever getting her life or her career back on track.

The media delights in watching Lohan fall further and further—and helping her to do so—without ever giving her the same shot at redemption that a Sheen or a Mayer get. In October 2010 Vanity Fair ran a cover story on Lindsay Lohan—entitled “Adrift.” Nine months later they ran a profile on Charlie Sheen—entitled “Charlie Sheen’s War.” The Sheen story was newsworthy for several reasons, one of which being that Sheen wanted to be paid a million dollars and have final story approval. He didn’t get either, but he really didn’t need approval because he doesn’t come across all that bad in the piece. Sure it talks about his love of porn stars, his 1998 cocaine overdose and his role in the Heidi Fleiss trial, but it also talks about how he “redefined the internet,” how he helped actor Tom Sizemore with his addiction and manages to never delve too deep into Sheen’s history of misogyny and violence against women. Let’s not forget this is the man who once threatened to put his wife’s head in a box and send it to her mother. Oh, that zany Charlie! What antics!

Compare this to the Lohan cover story which spends the opening paragraphs describing how crappy Lohan looks before descending into questions of “what went wrong?” and “is it too late?” Again and again in the piece Lohan has to defend herself with the writer never seeming to believe her or offer a shot at redemption. It repeatedly mentions how her reputation is in tatters and tries to find answers to why Lohan is so, well, adrift. In Sheen’s war there’s still the prospect he could win. Lohan, well, she doesn’t stand a chance.

The website “When Will Amy Winehouse Die?” reads like a macabre count-the-jellybeans contest. How many days does a junkie have left to live? Leave a guess, and a “pre-condolence,” like this one: “It’s not like you didn’t see this coming.” (This commenter chose July 11, 2008.) “We’ll miss you,” pre-eulogizes another, with a slightly more optimistic expiration date of March 11, 2011. If you’re correct, you’ll take home an iPod touch—presuming the gadget doesn’t fall into obsolescence first—and you’ll be crowned “Mr. or Mrs. Death.” “Amy is on her way out,” the site reads. “As the world is profiting from this decline, we thought it only fair that you should profit from it too.”

The same company runs the same contest for Britney Spears—this one for a PlayStation 3. It also hosts a half-dozen Europe-based websites for those looking to see pictures of Angelina Jolie’s tits or watch videos of guys wiping out on their Girls motorcycles. On the Winehouse death page, thousands have left their guesses alongside pictures of the singer in decline. Many entrants, it seems, have chosen their own birthday, with comments attached. “Thanks for the iPod!” one reads. Several say: “Die, bitch.” Others riff on Winehouse’s own lyrics: “You should’ve gone to rehab. Yes Yes Yes!”

It may be less overtly cruel than the putting a bet on when Amy Winehouse will die, but a lot of celebrity journalism appears to be a countdown to death. We watch bad girls like Winehouse stumble before us under the 24-hour surveillance of paparazzi. Lindsay Lohan gets drunk and disorderly, and crashes her car. Britney Spears is photographed without panties while the world debates whether she’ll commit suicide. Gossip blogger Perez Hilton registers another million hits, and the Bratz Pack keeps the party going.

Though her anti-rehab anthem sold more than fi ve million albums and made her an international star, Winehouse has, of course, been to rehab several times. Who hasn’t? B- and C-listers air their traumas on the latest reality show, Celebrity Rehab. Exclusive centres seem more like resorts than hospitals, with yoga, shiatsu and garden parties. Hospitalization is no longer shameful. It is trendy.

Star Magazine: rock bottom, indeed

But while the young women who are famous bad girls—Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton—check in and out of treatment, they seem unconcerned with redemption. Rehab always seems like someone else’s choice, the advice of publicists perhaps, and our suspicions are confirmed when a week later they’re up to no good again. They remain willful and unapologetic, refusing to conform to any sense of how women are “supposed” to act. They won’t be victims, patiently suffering in silence, and they aren’t trying to be anyone’s sweetheart. We can try to make them stay in rehab, but they say, “No, no, no.” “I told you I was trouble,” Winehouse coyly sings, “You know that I’m no good.” When the world yells, “Behave,” they only give us the finger and march, empowered, toward their own death.

As viewers of this spectacle, we’re caught between pity and condemnation. “How sad,” we say, that young women are cruelly targeted by the media, contorted by our demands that they be innocent but not childish, sexy but not slutty. We may hope they get the help they need, but most of the time, we’re less generous, believing they are getting what they deserve. They are getting paid; it’s not our fault they are too stupid, and obsessed with fame at any cost, to get their lives on track. We claim to worry about their health—hence the constant supervision of weight, pregnancy, reckless sexual behaviour. After all, don’t they know that they are role models? Rarely, if ever, do we allow that this is how they choose to live, that they don’t want to be Grace Kelly and they aren’t interested in our approval.

Society as a whole once held celebrity as the paragon of what we all could be: glamourous, rich, witty, beautiful. Scandals were kept out of the press, often by the press, infidelities buried, abortions arranged; we knew little of the excesses and depressions stars faced when there was no one around to watch them. America’s Sweetheart could be our dream, even though we knew nothing about her at all—in fact, because we knew nothing about her at all. Now, America’s Sweetheart is an album by Courtney Love, another debauched rebel rockstar.

In February, New York magazine published photos of Lindsay Lohan re-enacting Marilyn Monroe’s famous “The Last Sitting”—taken just weeks before her death in 1962—a creepy homage to a woman who pioneered the now well-worn path of sexy self-destruction, performed in front of the camera for all to see. Critics charged that the photos eroticized and exploited Lohan’s own downward spiral. “They are sexual, funereal images,” wrote Ginia Bellafante in The New York Times, which “ask viewers to engage in a kind of mock necrophilia.” These eerie photos link beauty and death, equating glamour and sickness, connections that are usually well hidden or airbrushed out.

Never before has so little been kept private; now everything is published, and every inch of women’s bodies scrutinized. As David Denby wrote in the New Yorker last fall, “every part of a star’s existence, including the surgical scars and the cellulite deposits, belongs to the media—and to the public.” Rumours that Britney is pregnant are dashed when the paparazzi snap a shot of her period-stained panties. Amy Winehouse’s damaged skin is shown in high magnification on UK news sites. She is diagnosed publicly, doctors showing up in the media to speculate about cause and treatment. “Notorious junkie failing to keep up with beauty regimen,” one headline read in June. Another article calls her “a shadow of her former smooth-skinned self.”

These photos show that the illusions that prop up celebrity culture—flawlessness and mystery—can fail. What could be more subversive in an industry based on beauty than to be publicly ugly? There is a kind of bravery here—however nihilistic—that these bad girls refuse to be our royalty, to play the role of demure ingénue. “In a nation of finger-wagging, name-calling, letter-writing, comment-posting, mean-spirited, stalking busybodies,” writes Heather Havrilesky in Salon, “maybe the crotch flash is the ultimate subversive act.”

Like them or hate them, the bad girls have an honesty to them that is difficult to find elsewhere. They do what they want, sleep with whom they choose, and refuse to be guided by a morality that’s not of their own making. As Lakshmi Chaudhry writes in The Nation: “[Paris] Hilton, Lohan and their peers represent a radically new generation of celebrities who receive attention—or more precisely notoriety—because they violate rather than perform traditional modes of femininity, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”

They “no longer feel the need to hide their appetite for pleasure, status and attention behind a giggle or a teary smile,” she writes. “It is progress—of a sort.”

I didn’t enter a guess about Amy Winehouse’s death, or Britney’s either. I’ll wait until the end to see how the story plays out. And while we, the viewers, may be all-too focused on watching these women self-destruct, the situation isn’t entirely hopeless. Today’s bad girls are tearing down the feminine ideal instead of just redefining it. It is progress. We’ll get there in the end—but it will take more than 12 steps.