I did a big round of showbusiness yesterday, lots of talk shows and talking back to little things in my ear while looking into cameras at far-away presenters as it rained cats and dogs outside. On every show there was much talk about Lindsay Lohan and her stolen purse. Firstly, the purse itself cost $5,000, so I think it should at least have come with some sort of alarm or viper arm, or at the very least an old-school '90s club to put across the straps to keep it from getting ripped off.
Also, she was carrying $10,000, which was unfortunately not returned with the thankfully recovered purse. How does one acquire that much cash? I can only get out $500 at a time at the ATM (minus the $3 "processing fee," which I am always mad about), and only if I am extremely lucky that day. I'd have to go to the ATM every day for how many days to get that much money, provided I don't forget a day, or spend it without thinking, and that's only assuming my paltry account can take it? I can't even count that high.
The other hot topic was Lindsay's leaked Playboy photo shoot. I must say, I love Playboy, and I love whenever someone fairly scandalous does a nude shoot. It's the highest and most alarming level of base self-promotion, and therefore it is thrilling to no end. I love it when celebrities get down and dirty and all Madonna's SEX book because that is the best, when non-porn people do porn. It is awesome, and I buy into every issue to pore over the pages and the strange, inert quality of the private parts of the really very famous. I would love to do this, but there are no takers, unfortunately.
The pictures of Lindsay are beautiful, as she is a stunningly pretty girl, and all the bad publicity and jail time haven't changed that, which is the great promise of youth, the enduring freshness that can withstand even head-on collisions with trains. Her derailment hasn't been drugs or passing out inside hoodies in the front seats of cars or a lack of undergarments or compulsivity around necklaces, though; rather, the myth of the tragic ingénue has been her downfall, and the Playboy photos say it most eloqently.
The sadness I feel about Lindsay has more to do with the media's casting her as Marilyn Monroe, swaddled in red velvet, sad eyes and vermillion lips, and framing her story as if it has already ended. These magazines constantly show her as if she is already dead, and I feel scared and freaked out and mad, like why can't they just give this kid a fucking chance?
It is a revival of the terrible trajectory played out by Anna Nicole Smith, an eventuality that I hated seeing and could do nothing to stop, and now it happens again with another beauty, and yet we stand by and just watch as a purse gets stolen and a life gets stolen, and in the face of all this burglary we are witnessing on the world's stage, we are distracted as our humanity gets stolen right out from under us.
This post also appears on Margaret Cho's blog.
although I hear your concern, (why do media describe LL as a has-been, a dead actress?), i disagree w/ many respondents' reasonings. I feel she is a victim ONLY of her own actions. She's had so much given to her, and she has chosen her path. Society isn't to blame.
So much talent and priviledge squandered. I am finding it hard to see her as the victim anymore.
Also, we saw more of her private bits in random paparazzi no-underwear photos than we did in the Playboy shoot so . . . Playboy overpaid
"Where is the love? It was devoured by corporate strategies and tactics that caught fire in the Reagan administration and continue to burn in the age of Obama. It's driven by the insatiable desire for personal pleasure,property,power,ego satisfaction. But the quest for those things consumes truth.It's easy to get pleasure.There's a place and time for that. But real joy? True connection? Personal integrity? Those things require patience and tending and cultivating. All across this culture I see a yearning for integrity, a yearning for spirituality. But people, the young in particular, are manipulated by many forces to believe that what matters in life is something else: money,materialism, short-term gain,power and the kind of show that goes along with it."
-Cornel West
Many believe that we are in a time of transition. With transition comes chaos, as we sweep away the old and no longer needed - leaving room for the new. If we remember we are a family, we will remember what is important. Teach your children well.
I try to avert my eyes -- and withhold my clicks -- as much as possible.
What else can we do when the "new media" tries to eat someone alive for profit?