Step one: admit that you have a problem. Check.
I came to terms with this problem a long time ago, and have set about pursuing a path of tasteful moderation. I only have two gossip blogs I will check on a regular basis, and two more that I might wander to every few days. I refuse to look at these sites on anything but my home computer--I don't need WWTDD popping up on my work history. I even limit my intake of stories. I won't read about the Gosselins. I skip over everything related to Paris Hilton. And until recently, I had exhausted myself on anything to do with Lindsey Lohan.
Lindsey and I go way back. I remember sitting around the house with my younger sister watching Lohan in the remake of The Parent Trap with Dennis Quaid and the late Natasha Richardson. She may have been 11 at the time, but hell, I was only 14, and I was smitten. So smitten in fact that a few years later while home sick I threw in my sister's DVD copy of Freaky Friday, a movie which provided me nothing other than an hour and a half to leer at an older, more intriguing Lohan. Once I had seen Mean Girls--which I proudly own to this day--I was officially hooked. The movie became a staple around the dorm room, usually played opposite Mario Kart as we pre-drank on Friday and Saturday nights. We all loved the movie, and all the more because of her. She was the sex symbol of the times. The barely legal knockout. Red hair, long legs, and just enough freckles to drive you nuts.
The honeymoon, as they say, didn't last. Lindsey started partying harder and harder, around the same time that the internet seemed to be making it easier to keep up with your favorite celeb while they were off screen. Sure, she would release other movies over that time, but they never drew me in like Mean Girls, and even if her album had been any good I wouldn't have been able to take it seriously because I was in a four year exodus from the world of popular music.
By the time the wheels had come off I had cooled on Lindsey. She still looked like what I fell for as I was growing up, but the person behind the mask had changed.
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Enough nostalgia and retread. The world knows the saga of Lindsey Lohan and I can offer no additional information on that. There were drugs, eating disorders, mental breakdowns, burglaries, car accidents, and sensationalist claims from family and friends that hit on either the extremely positive (Lindsey is brilliant and misunderstood, but sooooo strong as a person) to the extremely negative (Lindsey has AIDS, Lindsey is a thief, etc.). She has even gone to great lengths to compare her life to that of another drug addict that was spit out by the Hollywood machine--Marilyn Monroe.
At first I laughed. Lindsey broke into a house and stole jewelry? Hilarious. Lindsey kicked out of Club ____ for drunken behavior? What an idiot. Lindsey launches a clothing line and it flops? Funnier still. But after all the bad things seemed to pile up with no end in sight I became disillusioned. People joke about rubbernecking, the fascination with watching accidents occur and seeing the aftermath, but rarely do they actively engage in watching a tragic fall from grace, and derive pleasure from it. I hated myself because I hated Lohan. I felt she deserved what was coming to her, and that ultimately the universe was punishing her for her outlandish behavior and inflated ego.
And so I stopped reading. When I saw her picture or her name in the banner I would simply scroll past to the next story. My tolerance level had been reached. This went on unchanged for months. I avoided any mention of Lindsey's name and was generally a happy person.
Eventually, however, the curiosity crept back in. I started reading a blog post here or there about her. How could I not? The headlines were getting even more ridiculous than before. Now she was over a half million in debt and making a scene outside clubs after being refused service. This was the big leagues. No more getting fired from movies, she wasn't even being considered for movies in the first place.
It seems too cliche to say Lindsey is a case of the American Dream gone horribly wrong. Talent and beauty rewarded too fast. A poor soul who couldn't escape the clutches of her selfish and overbearing parents. It doesn't fit for the same reason anyone with a brain mocks VH1's "Behind the Music"--it's too predictable. Of course the drummer died, the singer and the guitarist fought over a woman, and nobody cared about the bassist. Thats how it always happens.
Too often we look for ways to pass off blame for celebrities. Different ground rules apply. People say Michael Jackson was just a product of an extremely dysfunctional childhood, but what does that really mean when we look at some of his actions? Is his pedophilia somehow less revolting because his father was a religious maniac? Are the molestation charges somewhat softer because he was denied a proper childhood? No. These actions matter, and anyone who says anything else simply has his head in the sand.
So I will continue to watch the downfall of Lindsey Lohan. I'll read about her next arrest, look at pictures of her stumbling drunk outside a club, and probably even watch a couple minutes of the sex tape that she is bound to release at some point. I am not saying I will feel good about any of this, but I won't feel bad either. Lindsey has had all the chances in the world to straighten up.
Ultimately, watching Lindsey slowly bankrupt herself of money, credibility, and dignity isn't about feeling good or bad, but simply feeling something. Ill do this for the same reason that millions of people will watch The Bachelor or Jersey Shore--entertainment. Somehow I get the feeling that is what Lindsey wants.
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