EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Charlie Sheen Paints Himself

The rant by actor Charlie Sheen now sounds angelic next to the fashion designer John Galliano’s disgusting remarks. You may not know what either said, just that both got into trouble with anti-semitic outbursts the same week. Watching the Galliano video it’s very clear why Dior fired him for good the same day. They could not keep him.

Sheen’s remarks about the producer of his show, Chuck Lorre, were a little less explosive. He taunts Lorre for having changed his name from Chaim Levine to avoid sounding Jewish. The implication is that Lorre is ashamed of his origins and wants to hide them. Charlie's words are clearly anti-Semitic in tone but that’s not the point here. What interests me is something else entirely: Charlie Sheen changed his own name from Carlos Irwin Estevez to avoid sounding Hispanic!

It’s an excellent example of how in everyday life we, too, paint ourselves. Charlie, battling his producers, seems to think that Lorre is as ashamed of being Jewish as he apparently is of being Hispanic. None of the many reports I have come across has even mentioned the “coincidence” in their name-changes.  But, as in art, so in life: we see what we know.