The whole thing is kind of tragic. I mean, what if someone saw the most embarrassing thing you did as a young person, caught it on video, and broadcast it to the entire world? By this, of course, I’m not referring to an intense religious fervor (one which he’s likely to grow out of), but rather an entire childhood spent creating one of the most insipid sitcoms ever made. 19-year-old star Angus T. Jones said recently in an interview with Christian group, Forerunner Chronicles:

I’m on Two and a Half Men and I don’t want to be on it. 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 on television. It’s bad news.

For the record, post-Charlie Sheen, this show has become so much more family-friendly, it makes Everybody Loves Raymond look like a Bertholt Brecht play. While it’s difficult to understand how a kid who makes almost $8 million a year can be this unhappy, I think we’ve learned at this point that childhood fame rarely creates well-adjusted adults. He mentions going to three or four churches each Sunday and looking for an all-black congregation (clearly fumbling with the politics of race); the guy is obviously having some identity issues and looking for meaning.

Maybe this is just the kid’s way of dealing with being a part of a project he doesn’t believe in. It’s a sitcom that replaced a wacked out Charlie Sheen with an even more hateable Ashton Kutcher. I can only surmise that Jon Cryer is some sort of magical angel of sweetness and charisma (who doesn’t love Jon Cryer?). I have literally, never in my life, met anyone who watches it, and yet, it persists? It’s been running for nine years, and they’re working on a tenth season.

Maybe this is just his way of sabotaging the show, committing career seppuku. (“Winning” as defined by his TV uncle Charlie Sheen?)

Or maybe there is a god!