Two and a Half Men (TV series)

I've never watched an episode in its entirety, but I don't really need to to know that this show, like Married With Children, How I Met Your Mother, and others are similar drek.

Drek...and popular. It's lasted for 8 seasons.

The characters are a "straight-laced" divorced man, kind of a wimp, his son, a bit overweight, and the straight-laced guy's brother, played by Charlie Sheen. Sheen's character is a more sanitized version of Sheen himself. Presumably the TV character doesn't do drugs, but he jumps from woman's bed to woman's bed, drinks too much, and is generally irresponsible.

And, based on the advertising still which has Sheen at the forefront of the three characters, the "bad boy" Sheen is the most important character on the show, and the most popular.

And let's extrapolate that to real life. In real life, Sheen is a drug addict, an alcohol abuser if not an alcoholic, and his life has spun out of control. That is also his TV character in real life, too, I have no doubt.

And yet these kinds of characters are subtly glorified in these kinds of sit-coms.

For myself, I would think there could be nothing more degrading than being a stand up kind of a guy - a judge or a baseball coach, and drink so much that I couldn't even drive home without falling asleep at a red light. (Yes, I'm talking about Tony LaRussa.) It takes a lifetime to build a reputation - ask Tiger Woods, and a second to lose it - ask Tiger Woods.

Yet in these TV sitcoms, losing one's reputation has no consequences. And admittedly if you're a big cheese like Tony LaRussa it has no consequences either, except the fact that people make jokes behind your back about you not being able to hold you liquor, but for the "average" person, these kinds of things can effect you for the rest of your life.

Can there ever be a "wholesome" sitcom again? Bearing in mind that these days "wholesome" is a dirty word and wholesome people are laughed and sneered at.