Bizarre, Society

Two And A Half Men . . . And A Hypocrite

Angus T. Jones has a curious way of demonstrating his deep Christian faith. Jones is shown in a new video denouncing the show “Two and a Half Men” as “filth” and a danger to Christian children and values. The problem is that Jones plays Jake Harper on the show and receives a reported $350,000 an episode. You may recall that Charlie Sheen was kicked off the show for making disparaging comments about the show and “dangerously self-destructive conduct.” While Sheen was not fired under a “morality clause,” such provisions are common in television contracts. Could denouncing the show as immoral violate the Morality Clause?

Jones’ comments came in a video for the Forerunner Christian Church. The 19-year-old actor told the faithful “I’m on ‘Two and a Half Men’ and I don’t want to be on it. If you watch ‘Two and a Half Men,’ please stop watching it and filling your head with filth. People say it’s just entertainment. Do some research on the effects of television and your brain, and I promise you you’ll have a decision to make when it comes to television, especially with what you watch.”

He then appears to struggle with the fact that he is producing the very “filth” that he is condemning: “If I am doing any harm, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be contributing to the enemy’s plan … You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that. I know I can’t. I’m not OK with what I’m learning, what the Bible says and being on that television show.”

His learning curve appears to include continuing to rack up almost $400,000 an episode for this “filth.”

Jones reportedly also warned against the onslaught on faith as an attendee of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Los Angeles:
“I have always gone to a Christian school since I was in kindergarten, but my faith was basically non-existent… School started to take a back seat more and more through high school. Two or three years ago my parents started have marital issues and started to go through the process of getting a divorce. At the time I also started dating this girl and when I look back now I see that as a time when the enemy was trying to push me in that direction, but God knew he was going to pull me out at the last second.” He did proclaim however that he was able to remain a virgin because “right then this cleansing phenomenon and presence came into me… I felt like I had just accepted God.” That again led him to denounce his own show: “My television show has nothing to do with God and doesn’t want anything to do with God, so it is a strange position I am put in.” It is probably doubtful that Chuck Lorre would go for “Two and a Half Men and God” in the coming season.

Jones insists that he is required to continue to make unGodly filth: “I am under contract for another year so it is not too much of a decision on my part. I know God has me there for a reason for another year.” The reason appears to be a filth peddler.

It will be interesting to see how Lorre approaches these comments after the Sheen controversy. I have never seen the show and do not watch prime time television. I am perfectly willing to believe that it is a sleaze fest. Jones was attending religious schools (according to some interviews) when he signed the contract. It is not clear if he thought the show was a PBS production, but it clearly did not bother him at that time.

However, assuming that Jones found God after signing the contract, I would be interested if his lawyers have made an overture to the producers to seek an early departure from the contract. It would seem unimaginable for Jones to continue to accept the money for producing filth that destroys the souls of unwitting children. It would be reminiscent of the famous Churchillian story about “price.” According to legend, Winston Churchill once asked a socialite if she would sleep with him for 1 million pounds. When she admitted that she would, he offered one pound. “Winston! What sort of woman do you think I am?,” the woman objected. He responded, “We have already established what you are, now we are just haggling over price.”

The most interesting question is whether Lorre could fire Jones under a morality clause and other provision. The comments of Jones not only actively discourage viewers but could discourage advertisers in supporting what one of the actors calls unadulterated filth.

If he has the same contract as Sheen, the studio asserted a general basis for termination based on failure to perform his required duties and a provision that allows termination for an act “which constitutes a felony offense involving moral turpitude under federal, state, or local laws, or in indicted or convicted of any such offense.” That would not fit an act denouncing moral turpitude, presumably. Moreover, actors should be allowed to have and espouse faith. What makes this more interesting is that the espousal of faith was the act of denouncing the show as evil.

The specific grounds might not matter. Presumably, Jones would not contest a termination since he has said that he is miserable in his current role. If so, who would challenge? Of course, if they fired him for moral turpitude, it could lead to an interesting lawsuit where an actor who denounced the show as immoral would fight to continue to make the immoral show rather than be declared immoral.

This is why I watch football. It is easier to follow.

Source: Fox

86 thoughts on “Two And A Half Men . . . And A Hypocrite”

  1. The show has a sexual overtone….
    As I woman, I don’t find it degrading to women….

    I do NOT see it as hating on women at all….

    People are sexual being…. men and women EQUALLY are sexual..
    It does NOT promote hurting women…. or beating women…. or degrading women….
    It promotes women as being sexual beings….. what is wrong with that????

    I do NOT see what is wrong with that….

    when Charlie Sheen was on the show…. when he was in a relationship he
    was loyal to the woman he was in a relationship with… he NEVER treated the women badly…. or degraded them…..

    There were a lot of drunk jokes… and nudity jokes…. jokes about Allen having less money… Jokes about Allen being Cheap….. Jokes about the kid being dumb…. jokes about divorce…. BUT, a LOT of people find those kinds of jokes to be funny….

    Who really cares???? the show NEVER promoted people to be MALICIOUS to one another…..

    There are shows that are FAR worse out there…..

  2. Further proof towards the evolving theory:

    ” They (teenagers) are on their way to becoming adults, but they are not fully there (or as this paper’s authors say, they are still partly “under construction”). And one aspect of their overall development that is not fully complete—perhaps until the mid 20’s—is a stable, solid capacity to make complex judgments, weigh closely competing
    alternatives in a balanced and careful way, control impulses and take the longer view. An important reason that these so-called “executive functions” are not reliably in full effect in adolescence is that they
    spring from a particular area of the brain—the prefrontal cortex—which is one of the last areas of the brain to fully mature … As Jay Giedd himself has said, “Teenagers are capable of enormous intellectual and artistic accomplishments, but the basic part of the brain that gives us strategies and organizing and perhaps warns us of potential consequences is not fully on board yet.”

    http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/BRAIN.pdf

  3. I would say he just sunk any future he has in television or the movies. He should have kept his mouth shut and worked with script writers to slowly make changes. If that is what he wanted. He may just be saying that to get out of his contract because he has something else he wants to do and cant because of the contract.

    That would also be a good excuse for his future boss.

  4. gurl – I find the show misogynistic and crude. I actually enjoyed it a lot when Sheen was there because I enjoy that sort of humor even though I recognize that fundamentally it hates women and is not all that fond of men either. As Mr. Lorre has proven repeatedly nobody ever went broke underestimating TV viewers. (although Big Bang is not neither as misogynistic nor as crude it has its moments)

    I was particularly concerned about the kid in the show because of the dialog. Sheen once said that they taped a lot of the worse stuff while the kid was away but watching the show I’m not sure I buy that.

  5. I have never watched even one episode. But I do understand the conflict in the sense that someone once said “it is difficult for a person to have a certain belief when their salary is involved.” (paraphrased)

    Soldiers have the same dilemma when they go from sitting in a pew singing about “God so loved the world …”, then they end up far away from the pew gunning down heathens for the Lord.

    Same difference. Different episode.

    The ancient Romans had a solution, they became members of Mithraism, a clone of churchianity.

    It was such a good clone that one of their Caesars and fellow members of Mirthraism, Emperor Caesar Constantine, made Christianity legal too.

    Constantine had seen a large cross in the sky in a vision:

    he had a dream in which Christ explained to him that he should use the sign of the cross against his enemies. Eusebius then continues to describe the Labarum, the military standard used by Constantine in his later wars …

    (Wikipedia). That sign of Empire is a source of conflict in more ways than one.

  6. It seems that if the work so disturbed young Mr. Jones he could refuse to do it & forfeit the money coming his way. If he really believes what he says I would support him taking that step. But my guess is he will continue to accept the millions the show has brought him and will bring him.

    I always feel bad for kids who get too much money too soon, it messes with their heads in ways that are hard to fix. Good luck to him.

  7. Give back all the Millions…. and STFU!!!! It took till you were 19 to figure out the show??? You’re not very smart, little chrsitian worm….

  10. I’m sorry… but, I find it REALLY hard to admire somebody who is willing to throw away this kind of opportunity…..
    he is not only hurting himself…. he is hurting his costars…..

    It is a harmless show that hurts NOBODY….. it is done in good fun…..

    The people of the USA need to stop getting their panties in a bunch over
    such jokes….

    This show does NOT promote violence…. NOR does it promote bad character…..
    It is a comedy…. NOTHING MORE…. nothing less…..

  11. Gene,

    There’s a correction page for that….. Lol… Duly noted… YOU are correct…. It’s a duh day I guess as my 13 year old told me last night….

  13. oh my non existent god….

    WOW!!!! This is just SAD..

    Lore messed up firing Charlie Sheen…. Now look what has happened to that kid….. he is screwing up a great opportunity…..

    There is NOTHING worse for a show than when one of the actors decides
    they have found jesus….

    I was a huge fan of the show Person of Interest….
    Then I found out that one of the stars of the show Jim Caveizel, is a serious born again christian…. I still like the show…. BUT, it kind of turns me off knowing that the main star spends his weekends preaching at different christian churches…. and I mean FULL ON Preaching….

    This kid could just quit and pay back the money from this filth…..
    Of course in doing so, he would destroy the show and hurt the other peoples careers….

    Oh this just makes me sad….

    I hope my daughter never finds jesus….

    I would be fine if she found Judaism….. I can handle Jewish people FAR MORE than Christians…..
    Christians just tend to go WAYYYYY overboard…..
    I grew up going to Catholic School….. and still born again christians make me very uncomfortable…… I do NOT NEED people to tell me, that they have MY life all figured out….

    and the Hypocrisy here with this kid Angus, is just too much…..

  16. AY,

    Don’t you mean Ron Jeremy? Jeremy Irons has made a couple of racy movies – including a very good version of “Lolita” – but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t made any porn.

    **********

    Angus,

    I’m glad you’re into learning. You’re about to learn a lesson about show business and business in general. As I learned it, “Dance with who brought you.” This also applies to proms.

  17. It’s a sleazy show, that just happens to have featured him as a child whose principal role is as the target of nasty jokes. Whatever his reasons, he will be well off away from that show.

    He’s still young and when he first started obviously he was too young to make an informed decision. He may well be under contract mainly because as a minor he had to delegate all career commitments to a guardian. Now he’s an adult his best course is probably to let his contract run out.

  19. “If I am doing any harm, I don’t want to be here. …..”
    —————————
    Sounds reasonable and mature to me. Angus was 10 years old when first plowed up as the $$$$$$tar glue for Two and a half Men. Now that he is 19 he is coming of age and demonstrating a desire to not be a hypocrit. I support and admire that in people in this very weird and plastic world.

    From Wikipedia…’Jones is fond of collecting quirky socks and propellor hats.[1] He is a Seventh-day Adventist. On October 8, 2012, at the Adventist Media Center in Los Angeles, Angus shared a testimony of his conversion (which was his 19th birthday).[9] In a November, 2012 interview with the religious YouTube channel The Forerunner Chronicles, Jones asked viewers to stop watching Two and a Half Men, stating that he has severe moral objections to the program due to his beliefs as a Seventh-Day Adventist.[10]’

    It is my understanding that he is simply working out the remaining 10 months of his contract, not playing both sides of the very wonky fence….

    disclaimer: I used to watch the show when he was a pudgy and adorable child and the content was less….._______________.

  20. Well…. He is the faithful from Austin….. Kinda like Jeremy Irons condemning pornography……

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