Charlie Sheen's Body Language, Melt Down or is He Winning, Kids

Here are my rough, unedited notes on Charlie Sheen's body language and paralanguage in various recent interviews. I used these notes as a guide for my interview this morning with AOL online. Please go to the link below for the full interview. Charlie Sheen, body language of latest interviews. One clip shows him before the interview officially begins. He thinks he is off camera. In ths "off stage" clip Charlie Sheen is rubbing the back of his neck. In fact rubbing it quite dramatically. This is a comfort cue typically done by men, the touch is to create comfort. Tactile stimulation effects the nerve endings in the skin and does comfort us. Rubbing the back of the neck is is actaully a cluster of cues. The rubbing is self touch a comfort cue. Rubbing the back of the neck, where the hair stands on end when we are frightened also shows clear fear, but the hard rubbing and or grasping at the back of the neck rather than a touch shows that the person wants to action and defend themselves, perhaps wishing the strike out at what or whoever is upsetting them. In another clip with his goodesses, notice how he is standing bent over the kitchen counter hiding his Pelvis (the sexual portion of the body) and leaning over awkwardly so his elbows rest on the counter, protecting his ventral front (the belly) from whatever media scrutiny he could get from living with two “goddesses” in his house to take care of his children. Also note that his hands are out in front placed in prayer position (prayer that this will go well) Then when the goddesses don't listen to Sheen's request to "Not go there" he uses a displacement behavior for his stress by odly getting up and going to eat an OREO cookie, taking it apart and licking it. Eating is also a displacement behavior used to deal with the stress of the day. Then same tape different interview Nothing “Broken” here “but the paralanguage delivery he actually broke the words. He shakes hands but then crosses his arms placing his hands in a fig leaf. This again protects him from sexual attack. You don’t see this fig leaf in celeb interviews (occasionally when speaking about sex scenes.) As Charlie Sheen says, "My assistant Regan (he does a tongue thrust) was putting the children to bed." The tongue thrust defies your judgment that the assistant is a former model and or porn star . When Charlie says, "I do not know where my children are." He looks suddenly frightened and lost, notice his unfocused eyes. He continues talking giving tongue erasing cues then rubbing his lips bouncing in his chair. The chair moves are odd as there are nice arms on the chairs. In the interviews where Charlie is wearing a brown shirt his face is white and drawn and he looks deschelved, his body language and voice are manic and to top it off he uses extreemly bizarre referances such War lock,tigers blood In the interivews with the blue shirt notice the manic moves and odd gesturing. Blue shirt sitting on the sidewalk drinking water As he says, "Drug tests don’t lie." " I don’t know don’t care." Charlie is choosing not to answer the question he was asked. His hand over his mouth as he talks about his dads concern for him show Charlie is blocking what he really wants to say. More rough notes. Holding a piece of paper.III and and and I I will not let you down. Agressively taking the paper with the negative comments from viewers who had seen his brown shirt interview. Charlie Sheen looks how he is sitting at the beginning.... feet out in a big..... feet pointing out. Brown shirt interview When was the last time you did drugs. “Look at me DUHHHH” pointing at himself, “ More about his goddesses, more on children. http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/03/experts-evaluate-charlie-sheens-body-language-is-he-lying/ Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Kathy Griffin at the VH1 "Divas Salute The Troops" Event In Which She Mocked Bristol Palin's Weight

I was asked by AOL.com to give my thoughts on Kathy Griffin at the VH1 "Divas Salute The Troops" event in which she mocked Bristol Palin's weight, claiming she's the only "DWTS" contestant to actually ever gain weight, and also referred to her as "The White Precious."

Are these remarks hurtful to not only Bristol, also the plentiful amount of young ladies who tuned into this program? The audience was booing anything Kathy had to say about the Palin family. They hadn’t even heard the joke when they started booing. I watched and listened to the tape several times. Those were really loud aggressive hateful boos. And startling, as I have seen military audiences absolutely love on Kathy and laugh buoyantly. She was working hard to get through that moment. I have never seen her that unloved on stage. Her voice was already blown going into that joke and I can tell you that can happen to you as a comic or speaker when you have to yell over the audience. That tells me that the audience was already going wild.

I think this was actually a pretty tame joke. The hard news media feels a politician's kid is off limits for criticism until the parent or the child chooses to put the child or themselves in the limelight. She chose to be on a show that loves to celebrate the underdog and the winner, but also a show that EVERYONE makes fun of the contestants. Maria Osmond calls the show "dancing with the starved" because of how the media made fun of her weight on the show.

I can tell you the only time I have received death threats from an audience is when I was on a National News show and was asked to say three pieces of praise for Palin’s media interviewing skills and to make three suggestions for ways Sarah Palin could improve her interviewing skills. ( This was at the beginning of her Vice Presidential debate.)

Is Kathy sending the wrong message? I think she was making a fat joke against a young woman who chose to be in the lime light. Kathy didn’t deliver it with the acidic dig and face that she uses when she really dislikes someone. Are her words damaging? I think it might be damaging for her, but she thrives on it. She was bringing it on.
I also think Palin knew that digs like this might happen if she went on the show and she still wanted to do it. Even my 90 year old mother commented weeks ago that Palin was gaining weight, but she was impressed that she drove herself from Alaska to do the show. My mother wanted to see Sara Palin’s TV show on Alaska because she was impressed with her daughter. The Palin family draws attention.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.