Has Lindsay Lohan proved the Scientologists right?

For the armies of fans obsessed with Lindsay Lohan's every film, song, television appearance, stumble, court appearance…it's become increasingly difficult to justify our idolatry of her and her behaviour. Fans and lusty-gazed admirers don't want to see their idol fall from grace so dramatically, and this case of a woman who's flown too close to The Sun and its brethren has disappointed many.

It's discomforting to know that the same girl who charmed so many of us in The Parent Trap and Mean Girls went on to DUIs and rehab stints. Much of the criticism heading her way inflicts the pain of a double-edged sword as she is so frequently compared to Paris Hilton. The two are 'treated' to the same press attention, but Paris Hilton's forays into work, for all their capital gains, have been flippant; the heir to a millionaire's fortune doesn't need to lift a finger. Whereas Lindsay has been working since she was 3 years old. Her pushy stage mom wasn't only there for the fame, but as far as the reports show, after being ditched by shifty father Michael, the family kinda needed the money, yeah?

In the discourse of female celebrity, we find it all too easy to compare disparate people. No female cook can crack an egg without an instant juxtaposition with Nigella Lawson, no female singer can claim independent sexuality without comparison to Madonna. When regarding the case of Lindsay Lohan, we can't shift our relativism to accommodate her talent instead of her crimes. We won't analyse the similarities between her and Winona Ryder, another skilled actress gone wayward, but we will gladly box her in with Paris Hilton, another female socialite who's had a DUI.

When Paris was packed off to Lynwood, I didn't get in this much of a fuss. This is because, from a background with so much money that the sense would have to be on steroids to catch up, Ms Hilton was always destined for some sort of tragedy. You can't fall that far when your highest point was on a hotel bed as your shifty boyfriend filmed you blow him in night vision.

Although it would be facetious to insist that Lindsay deserves no jail time, let's not pretend that she had no potential as a bona fide actress. Tina Fey's stamp of approval, along with the praise Robert Altman and the cast of Prairie Home Companion bestowed upon her, are proof of this beyond her subjectively-judged filmography. Where did it all go wrong? If written by the less homophobic of its staff, a Daily Mail report would state that a 'tragic cocktail of drugs and booze' was directly to blame for the criminal offences. Maybe her dwindling fortune was spent on as many grams of coke as it was on items from Cavalli. Though, as a recent graduate, I know oodles of people who, if followed around daily by packs of paps, could be painted out as drug addicts, alcoholics and more. Wasn't Lindsay just doing what every young woman with a leetle too much money and a lot of free time does?

Not quite. There's something more at work here. There are problems which warrant not only 90 days in jail but a further 90 in rehab. I'm not denying the addictive qualities of drink and drugs, but Li-Lo's SCRAM bracelet didn't pick up on either, and as rough as she looks, she's not gone through cold turkey. Girl's got a problem with something else..

What Lindsay, like Casey Johnson before her, has a clear problem with, is legal. Legal at all ages in the US. Adderall. And Ambien. And Dilaudid. And more. I don't know what all these things are, and I don't think I should do. Should a healthy young, successful person ever know the literal highs and lows of prescribed medication? Perhaps not,  but the heaving medicine cabinet comes as standard in the Hollywood hills; fitted in Heath and Brittany's bathrooms, too. 

Now I know Tom Cruise is nuts. I doubt the Presleys' motives. And I completely question the veracity of a religion which allows through its hallowed kitschy gates the todally serious offspring of one Mr. Robert Geldof, who's like, todally named after a fruit. Yet, when the religious poodle that is Scientology damned prescription drugs, it wasn't barking up the wrong tree…

Lindsay Lohan Is Human(itarian). Wowz.

Lindsay Lohan’s Indian Journey wasn’t highbrow, not enough experts were consulted, and, at some points, our presenter seemed very ignorant. For the Guardian’s comment section, the fantastic Marina Hyde's review missed the point in this article: Lindsay Lohan's child trafficking film: DVD extras.

I responded:

Didn't anyone realise the juxtaposition that BBC3 were trying to employ by having Lindsay Lohan as a presenter?

It seems as if the biggest challenge in the process of the evaporation of child trafficking is changing social expectations. Lindsay spent a lot of her time in the documentary frustratedly wondering why the practice seems to be culturally acceptable. Those who use child labour directly obviously don't care, the police turn a blind eye, parents willingly send their children away to work, and the children themselves are conditioned into complicity.

In a very similar way, Lindsay's been working in the public eye, and under much scrutiny since she was three years old. Her career, according to us onlookers, has been undoubtedly more glamorous, rewarding and creative than those of the trafficked children. But she's been poked and prodded by millions of strangers, held up as a scapegoat, a mess, and simultaneously a sex object for fantasies to be projected onto. She’s rich, she’s famous, but tt would be ridiculous to suggest that she hasn't been exploited.

During the programme, a girl who'd been trafficked into prostitution told how she arrived at a brothel. She only realised where she was when she saw girls wearing short skirts, smoking and drinking. That hit a nerve with Lindsay, who we know does all three. And surely it hit a nerve with many women watching at home, who, as well, do all three? It was clear that presenter, subject and audience were all meant to align, despite their different social standings: "Kids have this innocence – when it's taken away, it's so hard to get back" - hands up who disagrees?

Just as child-trafficking is socially acceptable, the western media's persistent humiliation of and titillation at the expense of a young woman with too much money and not enough sense is socially acceptable. It's therefore not entirely facetious to compare these two culturally-sanctioned problems.

If this juxtaposition was the BBC's intention, then hats off to them. Firstly, they proved that exploitation can and will happen anywhere. Secondly, it proves that we, as humans, will trouble ourselves by falling into patterns that we do not question. Thirdly, it proves that the BBC, for all its institutional failings, does have some clever people within its ranks.

They could've picked many people to present this programme, but they picked someone who would give the cause attention. Running with their theme of fronting programmes about young women with young women, they picked a young woman. They also picked someone who is such a grade A flake who would bawl. And when she did? It was human. If it's any consolation for those who feel she should've remained stone-faced listening to tales of child slavery and abuse, she was embarrassed when she cried. Cut her some slack, because she wasn't only empathising, she was remembering; she herself suffered years abuse at the hands of her father.

Her uncontrolled, emotional response worked for a BBC3 audience - 16-34 year olds, many of whom would literally only notice a documentary if it stood up in their eye-line and shouted 'GIRL WITH TWO HEADS. SRSLY!' Her initial ignorance to the subject also worked. The audience would align with her easily, as she knows no more than your average 23-year-old who loves to shop. In this type of documentary, an exploratory one, I’d much prefer a genuine broadcaster than one who dumbs down to seem likeable, or one who is too wrapped up within the subject matter to relate to.

And for those who are a scrape older than the intended demographic, or perhaps more sophisticated for a programme fronted by a former child star, (I may mean you, Marina), maybe you could've noticed this comparison. Hopefully, outside of columns which simultaneously nit-pick yet thrive upon celebrity nonsense, this documentary will have attracted some serious debate about the horrors of child-trafficking, and furthermore, a consideration that no culture should justify the exploitation of previously innocent people.

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I find Lindsay Lohan infinitely attractive and hilarious. This may help me to defend her, but, more positively, this is an exercise in defending someone who is almost impossible to defend. Scraping the barrel, if you will. Proving that I could argue my way out of a 30foot hole rapidly filling with ammonia.

2million hits and counting

I saw this a few days back and I think it's brilliant. It's nice to validate Lindsay's talent and her wit and how generally pretty she is. It's also great to see her willing to be filmed. When she arrives to awards shows or is posing for photos or...acting, she's at her best. Also, as a viewer, we don't feel so voyeuristic. The whole thing is very self-deprecating and surprisingly mature.

Lindsay Lohan's eHarmony Profile from Lindsay Lohan

Larry Levan and a whole host of other people

A couple of Popbitches ago this marvellous piece was featured:

>> Miami splice <<
Sam/LiLo: not the new Larry Levan

Honk writes:

"A friend was in a Miami club this week where

Sam Ronson and Lindsay Lohan were booked to DJ.

They shared a single laptop between them, indeed
Lohan seemed to be 'rocking' a room of 600

using nothing more sophisticated than iTunes.

And it showed, as her four-second attention

span meant guests were treated to something

akin to the 'intros' round of a pub quiz. Lohan

disappeared to a crouching position behind

the decks for a good 10 minutes whilst she er,

blew her nose and Ronson took over. She at least

tried. 15 minutes later, they'd packed up, the

club emptied immediately, and a real DJ took

over and played to a near-empty club."

I wrote an article about Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson. Why, despite not being amazing role models, are brilliant because their relationship can serve to teach some home truths. Like: not all girls need to be super-feminine to get laid, but that's cool. Or that really generically astoundingly hot girls do fancy other girls. Or that people don't have to define their sexuality anymore.

The shortened article is here. The full article is remarkably defunct now, as a whole load of shit happened. But I wouldn't want to write any further on that in case the whole thing changes again.

Changes is the name of a song by Larry Levan. He was a DJ and producer in the 70's- 80's.



He's credited as the founder of dub, and dubstep is meant to be a derivative of dub. But I think it's a bit like taking that little plastic thing on the tip of your shoelace of your Nike Air Force IIs and putting it in your nose. Dubstep takes a small, irrelevant element of dub and makes it really dangerous for no particular reason other than to look a bit hard.

Larry used to play at the Paradise Garage in New York. People used to have sex on the dancefloor. Men used to wear heels and big hair and women were mostly made of sequins. The Paradise Garage probably reeked of poppers. When I was 14, my mum found some poppers in my bag and made me pour them in the sink. She muttered "Smells like Studio 54".

Remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Jenn-nay is in a bar doing lines and KC and the Sunshine band is playing? Well, yeah, a bit like that. I think Jenn-nay had a cooler life than Forrest. Like when Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird is playing and she's about to jump out of a window a gajillion storeys high? That was cool. She was played by Robin Wright Penn who was married to Sean Penn who was married to Madonna and is also known to hang out with Lindsay Lohan. Who got compared to Larry Levan.

Madonna used to go the Paradise Garage. The promotional video to Madonna's first song, Everybody, was filmed there. Not that Youtube will let me find it. Wikipedia says: "The song introduced classic Madonna themes like individuality, dancing and singing as forms of self-expression, as well as the optimism that dominated the first five years of her career."

And now I kind of wish, oncemore, I could do my dissertation on Madonna. Enjoy: