This week’s final episode of OWN’s Lindsay show brings us full circle on the former child star. As we’ve watched her emerge from rehab into Oprah’s calculating arms, then flounder as the resentful focus of the documentary crew—where her only power seemed to lie in unpunctuality—I began to kinda like the poor kid. But then, I didn’t have to help her pack for Miami.
LiLo’s Coddler
That poor guy, Wee Matt, Lindsay’s assistant. Why on God’s green earth would anyone want to be a star-wrangler? I’d rather guard the till at a 7-11, where at least my off time would be my own and I’d get plenty of Cheetos. But instead Matt has to help LL pack for a trip to Miami, where she will be staying on Star Island. Time for a bathing suit! As Matt hoists out a suitcase and begins to sift his fingers through the tangled spaghetti of Lindsay’s 357 string bikinis, Lindsay is lying on her bed smoking and mentioning that packing can be stressful “because I go overboard with it.” Not overboard enough. Frankly, I’d have him try on the damn things. While playing the kazoo.
The Media Mess
But alas, she does not. Instead Lindsay moves fast, eludes the film crew and next thing we know we’re looking at her own footage from Star Island, gazing at Miami’s uninspiring skyline and a circling crew of paparazzi. Cue the Jaws soundtrack and…next day, Lindsay’s in the headlines for having somehow encouraged someone to beat the crap out of Barron Hilton. (Is Evelyn Waugh the celestial joker who’s naming these people? Or does Bret Easton Ellis still have that job? ) Paris H. tweets threats, the tabloids spew rumors, it’s all completely meaningless and shame on anyone who gives a crap. Except I truly think no one does, including the media.
Speaking of the media—did they always have such contempt for our intelligence? These last few episodes of Lindsay began to have a real meta feeling to them; things in her life are reputed to happen that might not have happened but the media reports on it and then someone reports on the reporting and the reports get grubbier but somehow it’s always the subject and not the source who ends up tainted.
Fame: A Cruel Mistress
Why bring that up in a recap of the Lindsay show? Because the reason I feel sorry for her is that she seems to have been so emotionally limited by the media’s kaleidoscopic view of the world, by a Hollywood diet of meta-experiences and decades of the false relationships of fame, plus the smooth amiability of people who are making money off of her. Fame has become so self consuming that, as a paparazzi on the show said, all you have to do is wait. “Every time they fail, there’s a new reason to chase them.” So why wonder that some lonely unloved creatures would do anything to keep being chased? To keep the attention they’ve so desperately sold their lives for?
Lindsay answers that question, a bit, at the opening of the night’s second episode. She is being questioned by Jared Leto, who himself is doing a doc about Hollywood. How many film crews were in that one room? What do people in Hollywood admire, Leto asks. “Fame,” Lindsay answers. Who have you most disappointed? “Myself.” I dunno, I think she disappointed fame the most—and the paparazzi are its many-headed Hydras of revenge.
But just maybe, just maybe that circle is really coming around. Suddenly, things go from sorta sad gigs like a Billy on the Street job to slightly better ones like introducing Miley Cyrus at Madison Square Garden to an appearance at Sundance announcing her next movie, Inconceivable. She goes to fashion shoots and shows up on time, is praised for her professionalism. She does more community service and pulls together a book deal (tho I’m not holding my breath waiting for that book).
Final Thoughts on the Doc
In the final 15 minutes, Lindsay has finished Oprah’s documentary and the documentary twisted into covering itself, which really was the last word in meta disingenuousness—next, would it rate itself? Review itself? But then it turned out that the post-script was pretty interesting. People on the street discussed Lohan as a person in this series and their opinions varied widely. “Narcissistic.” “Relatable.” They like “her style, her clothes.” One thoughtful-looking lady said, “It’d be fortunate if she could cut her hair and dye it black and go live quietly for a while.”
It would, indeed. And it would actually make for a far more interesting hypothetical, never-gonna-happen, book. The person whose response to this documentary series most matched my own was Lindsay’s. When she watched it, her thoughts were, “This is really sad—who’s helping her?”
Only a little more awareness can help her—not just the self-awareness much vaunted in the rooms but an awareness of others. The final twist of the documentary was a revelation about the list of Lindsay’s sex partners that recently hit the gutter press: It turns out this list was hijacked from the notebook containing her fourth step work. “The fact that it happened was not only humiliated but mean,” she said. “It’s mean-spirited.”
Particularly in light of a revelation Lohan makes during the final moments of the doc, stating that the opening weeks of filming occurred just as she’d had a miscarriage. Hence her fatigues and lack of accessibility during that time.
Compassion for Lindsay
And it made me realize how mean-spirited we’ve all been trained to be; when I first heard about that list, I assumed it was made one drunken night, over beaucoup drinks, out with friends. Not by some poor soul trying to straighten themselves out. But compassion doesn’t get you a high ranking on Google, so no one’s pedaling it.
Nonetheless, I want to bid a compassionate and rather fond farewell to Lindsay Lohan, who is a messed up addict both protected and corrupted by people who make money off of her but who nonetheless has a cunning survival instinct and a rather fabulous husky voice.
Keep well, Lindsay. And stay off of Star Island.
Photo courtesy of Joel Kramer via Flickr (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/) (resized and cropped)
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