Why We Still Care About Lindsay Lohan
By Thoughtis
I know Lindsay Lohan. Well, actually I don’t. But I know the type. Lindsay Lohan is the girl who comes to your party, does all your coke, screws your boyfriend, and leaves your house in shambles. Yet somehow after all is said and done, you’re still like “Wait, when can I see you again?” You hate her for the things she does but you’re still inexplicably drawn to her. Why? Because she’s exciting. Because she doesn’t quite value her life as much as you do, so she’s capable of doing stuff you only dream about. It’s fun to see her light the match because you never could.
I didn’t want to see Lindsay Lohan tank on SNL. Like (mostly) everybody else, I wanted to see her triumph and remind everyone why we’re still talking about her, even though she hasn’t made a decent film since 2006. That’s the funny thing about Lindsay. She only really had it together for two or three years. The movies she made as a child notwithstanding, she only was known as an actress with a capital A for a relatively short period of time. She’s been a mess more often than not, which is why it’s so fascinating that we still care.
We care about Lindsay Lohan in a way that we will never care about Emma Stone. Despite having taken Lindsay’s place while the star was drying out in one of her numerous rehab stays, Stone doesn’t have the darkness that Lindsay has that makes her so compelling to watch. Lindsay takes her messed up childhood, her drug and alcohol use, and her violent relationships and transfers all of it into her performances. It seems like in order to be an actor, you have to have some demons. Otherwise, why would you want to act? Why would you want to be someone else for a living if you weren’t trying to run away from yourself a little bit? (Obviously there are exceptions to this. However, the actors that we seem to embrace the most are the ones who seem a bit broken.)
Lindsay bombed on SNL because she wasn’t ready. I mean, don’t you think this comeback she’s embarking on is sort of a joke? All it took was posing nude for Playboy for America to think that she was on the road to recovery. It’s like we were writing the script of her life for her. We were tired of delighting in her downfall so, as a culture, we just decided to forgive her. One photo shoot and it was done. The next act had started. Lindsay was on the mend!
Except she isn’t. Lindsay might be completing her community service on time and making her judge happy, but she is not sober by any means. Last week, when she was interviewed by Matt Lauer for the Today show, she proclaimed to the world that she was clean and sober. When asked for how long, however, she got visibly uncomfortable and replied, “Um, it’s been awhile. It’s been… a long time.” Yeah, no, that’s not how sobriety works. If she was working a program, she would know the exact number of days she’s been sober. She might’ve slowed her roll but she hasn’t left those wild days behind. Also hilarious: Lindsay told Matt Lauer she hasn’t gone out in a few months, even though paparazzi pictures indicate otherwise.
We’re rushing her. We want her to be okay again because America LOVES a comeback but as evidenced on SNL, she’s not ready. She still has to hit some kind of a bottom and we need to let her. SO JUST BACK UP EVERYONE! I don’t care about a lot of celebrities but I do care about Lindsay. Maybe it’s because I feel partially responsible for her downfall. Every time I click on a picture of her falling down wasted, I feel like I’m fueling her addiction rather than helping. God forbid if she ever did die, I would feel like I had blood on my hands. Of course, maybe this is me being too sensitive. Maybe the trajectory of her life has nothing to do with me or the American public. Regardless, I still want her to get better. And I’m not going to pretend that she’s sober and together when she’s clearly not.
