I wasn’t planning to write anything about Lindsay Lohan today (or any other day for that matter). I only know who she is through my four year old daughter, and Lindsay seemed to be like any other child star in whom my daughter shows an interest. Unfortunately, this morning I picked up the local paper and there was a surprising photograph and story about Lindsay’s upcoming interview in Vanity Fair.
I glanced at the story briefly but could not stop looking at the picture, which to say the least, was very provocative. I had not realized that this girl was so grown up. I knew she had battled eating disorders or whatever from overhearing reports on the news, but that was about it. Judging from the photograph, she seems to have bounced back and appears rather healthy for the most part.
It just so happens that last night my daughter (4 years old) and I watched the movie Life Size (2000) on the Disney Channel. This stars Lindsay as Casey, an 8th grader who has lost her mother, and Jere Burns as her widowed father Ben. They aren’t doing so well after her mother’s passing away, and somehow or other Casey manages to cast a spell that brings her Barbie-like Eve doll to life. Eve (played by a lovely Tyra Banks) is forced to see the world from a real perspective, something very different than the plasticine perfection she has known; predictably, Casey learns more about life and friendship from this life-size doll than she could have ever imagined.
While the movie is short on probability, it certainly showcases the young Lindsay’s talents. My daughter was riveted to this story, in part due to her fascination with the dolls she currently owns and their similarity to the Eve doll/person. I also think she (as so many little girls obviously do) really identified with Lindsay’s Casey, who wants to be popular and wants to be happy and desperately wants her mommy back (which is why she somehow changes Eve into a living thing in the first place). Lindsay can laugh, emote, throw a mean football, and cry on cue better than any other kid actress around (at least it seems to me).
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Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
You mentioned a sad look on her face. I agree, and it makes me very sad ans I think about the future my two daughters face in life.
But then, I'm not above linking to a website I recently found called Lindsay Lohan doesn't change facial expression, which documents at least eight variations on a vacuous theme.
2 - Bliffle
That's what happens. Enjoy your daughters while you may. Too soon they will be grown and gone. In the meanwhile they will learn to denounce you, but this gives you a chance to learn how to Roll With The Punches, a skill that will become your most valuable personal psychological asset. If you are lucky they will give you grandchildren, whom they will persistently underestimate, and who will Make It All Worthwhile. Shhhh: keep it a secret, lest someone contrive to disappoint you.
Remember all those snapshots you made of your happy children jumping, running, dancing, smiling and laughing? In the forests, at the beaches, in the living room? Sleeping happily in the back of the car on the way back from the lake when you carried them dreaming safely in your arms to their own beds while they dozed with their little arms around your neck? Scan them all in and post them on the internet. Where anyone who knows their names can easily find them. Like boyfriends, husbands, growing children. When they protest, claim they are just for yourself to remember whereever you are. Claim to be too dumb to make them private. Offer them the password, the website ownership, a new computer, whatever they need to change them to a private access. It helps to cry. You may even get a look of recognition and intimacy from a boyfriend or husband who has discovered that His Beloveds father is not as bad as he was told. That the poor girls childhood was not as terrible as he thought. It could happen to you.
3 - Lisa McKay
What I find particularly sad are the types of role models that young girls choose - vacuous pop stars who trade more on sex appeal than actual talent. One hears too many stories about smart girls who go to great lengths to hide their brainpower in school because it's not considered to be an attractive trait.
4 - Christopher Rose
oohhhh, brainy girls sexy, me like; stupidity is always ugly, even in a pretty package.
5 - Victor Lana
Thanks to all for the comments. I know I wrote this thinking about my own daughter the whole time. Once in a while you think, "When am I going to start losing her?" I think Bliffle has a good answer for that. Thanks!
6 - Vern Halen
There's a lot of personal sadness in this thread - too heavy for Blogcritics. It makes all the stuff about the war & politics and free speech and church and state and the nature of art seem trivial. Thanx for the nudge back into reality.