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The Modern Bedlam
Posted at: Mar/01/2011 : Posted by: mel
Related Category: Society,
Have you heard the term “Bedlam” before? Our modern usage of the term bedlam has come to mean an uproar or chaos, but it didn’t used to have this meaning. Originally, the name came from a London hospital named “Bethlehem” which in Hebrew means “house of bread”. That is actually a pretty fitting name since the hospital was originally intended for the poor and suffering who had no other lodging or shelter. By the sixteenth century the hospital was used primarily as an asylum for the insane. By the seventeenth century the term Bedlam was in use as a short hand or abbreviation for the hospital and by association, a way to describe how insane people act. By the eighteenth century it became the custom for the idle classes of London to visit Bedlam and observe the antics of the insane patients as a novel form of amusement. This was done even by the nobility and their friends. The hospital charged a penny for admission. At the time you could casually stroll the halls and gawk at the antics of the insane. Apparently, this was a popular form of amusement because it is well noted that the hospital was averaging nearly 100,000 visitors a year. There are many letters and other accounts from the era speaking how visitors would make faces at the insane or poke things such as sticks through the bars just to rile them and encourage more animated behavior. Reading some of these historical accounts it reminds me of how my children used to try and behave when we took them to the zoo. Especially around the primates, if the animals were too sedate for their expectations, they would jump up and down, wave their arms and stick out their tongues trying to rile the monkeys and other primates into more interesting behavior. If mom and dad were not paying close enough attention, they would even escalate their antics to rude noises and yelling in an attempt to elicit more entertaining behavior. I distinctly remember on one occasion wondering if the monkeys might be more entertained by my children, than the children were by the monkeys. Are you wondering why I brought up this strange historical insight? During one of my recent early morning internet sojourns I got to see some of the Piers Morgan interview of Charlie Sheen. For those of you who are out of touch, Charlie Sheen is a Hollywood star of the big and small screen. Apparently, his wealth has afforded him the opportunity to live the benchmark lifestyle of sex, parties and drugs. He has been through a number of wives, innumerable girlfriends and a long list of rehab facilities. Piers Morgan is one of those interviewers who boast that he knows how to ask the “probing” and “important” questions. Watching Piers Morgan poke at Charlie Sheen and get him enraged brought to mind that image of poking a stick through the cage bars to get the insane person to start drooling. It was exactly like paying your penny at Bedlam, only Morgan gets the penny. The people who watch his show are, in effect, paying Piers Morgan to provoke Charlie Sheen for them. To push his buttons, ask him about the women he prefers, coyly compliment him on his benders, all because it's so easy to get him to brag about all of that. Sheen wants to say "epic" and "winning" and "the scoreboard doesn't lie." He's got a pocket full of speed-related metaphors for himself. Sheen seemed to return over and over to rocket fuel, jets, bombs and the “let's go for it” all when talking about himself. Of course, he has a special brain and is beyond conventional rehab. The pity of the situation is that because he truly does not see anything wrong with his conduct, he is easily provoked into saying more and more. Of course, to make Sheen light up, to get him to rant about the stuff you really want — you don't do anything that might slow the rocket man down. Piers soft-pedaled his domestic-violence problems by referring to them as press reports "hinting" at violence, rather than police reports and court cases that stretch back over many years. You let him say a domestic-violence case was "thrown out," when in fact he pleaded guilty (is this credible interviewing). Of course, we all chuckle when he says things that don't make any sense. You tell him you're on his side. You tell him he has a "rock star life," which might as well be a literal dog whistle. You choose not to notice that he's flitting from one topic to another, that part of his explanation for how ready he was to go back to work was "a new tattoo." These aren't interviews; these are things Charlie Sheen is doing. He could be interviewed, but these aren't interviews. They're sideshows. Unfortunately, we aren’t watching and listening to find out what is the next project in his career, we’re listening to find out just how delusional Charlie Sheen is. It really is a shame, Charlie thinks we are interested in him, when the reality is we are just enjoying the morbid spectacle of watching him drool on himself. Then there is Piers Morgan, he tells us he is a skilled interviewer. Maybe I’m old fashion, but I believe that an interviewer look for information, or enlightenment, or something that is at least insightful. Unfortunately, this is just paying a penny and poking a stick at the crazy person. Paying a penny at Bedlam, nothing special there, but maybe we should be ashamed for watching.
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