THILINA BANDARA
Opinions Writer

Hollywood, to a young Thilina Bandara, was a magical dreamland that produced extraordinary stories. The Lion King, Jurassic Park and Batman were all just the beautiful manifestations of this mythical realm, and that was enough for me.

Today, however, Hollywood scares me. It’s a place where true creative inspiration is anomalous, and the chance of moral corruption for those inside seems unbearably high.

So like clockwork, a famous person has a spectacular meltdown every couple of months. Today I imagine Hollywood as a giant, gelatinous blob that lures in those ambitious enough to dream of creating art for a living; a sexy monster that — for the general public — is only as interesting as the bile it spits out, with Charlie Sheen being the most recent of her abhorrent humours.

With Sheen’s most recent deviancy, his audience — the Internet — seemed to laugh along all the while. As funny and outlandish as the things he says and does may be, there is something disturbingly familiar about this performance.

Maybe it has always been this way, but I’m increasingly noticing that the most resonating stories coming out of Hollywood involve celebrities hitting rock-bottom. Unfortunately, these moments are what make Hollywood culture so fascinating, and I feel bad for noticing.

But it’s all the more tragic when nobody takes notice of those few celebrities who conscientiously object to what’s going on around them, and actively reject the absurdity that comprises Hollywood culture. Such is the largely untold story of post-Chappelle Show “meltdown” Dave Chappelle.

Feeling overwhelmed and socially alienated due to his tremendous success, Dave Chappelle walked away from continuing the massively popular Chappelle’s Show for a third season, and with it, Hollywood’s $50-million offer to keep working 20 hour days for material he stopped believing in.

Shortly after his subsequent highly-publicized retreat to Africa, he did an interview with Inside the Actor’s Studio’s James Lipton, and explained Hollywood’s toxicity through the experience of one of his heroes, Martin Lawrence.

In 2000, during the promotion of the movie Blue Streak, Martin Lawrence suffered a near fatal heat stroke. A young Dave Chappelle came to Martin’s bedside and asked him if he was doing all right.

“[Martin] said, ”˜I got the best sleep I ever got in my life’”¦And that is how tough he is.” With powerful conviction, Chappelle then turned the tables on the interviewer, asking Lipton a series of questions: “What is happening in Hollywood, that a guy that tough will be on a street, screaming, ”˜They are trying to kill me?’ [In reference to a psychotic episode Lawrence suffered in 1996.] Why is Dave Chappelle going to Africa? Why does Mariah Carey make a $100-million deal and take her clothes off on TRL? A weak person can not get here to sit here and talk to you. Ain’t no weak people talking to you. So what is happening in Hollywood? Nobody knows.”

It’s an ominous reminder of what can happen to a person inside a maliciously tense environment. What happened to Charlie Sheen? Nobody really knows. Whether it was legitimately a professional conflict that pushed him over the edge or a completely drug-induced psychosis, the theatrical spectacle is what keeps us interested in his bizarre, crumbling life.

Should we laugh at Sheen? We can’t help it. Should we feel sorry for him? He’s reaping what he sowed. Is it worth it, just to remind us how screwed up Hollywood really is? Yes.

So maybe Charlie Sheen is doing us all a favour.