Why do we care about Lindsay Lohan being jailed?Is it because she's got all the gifts? She's got beauty, grace, intelligence, talent, and good luck. She emerged from the thousands of other beautiful. graceful intelligent talented girls in Hollywood, who are doing their very best to make it.
Make it? We know making it means to become a name, get acting roles in films, be written about and talked about, have paparazzi following your every move, be invited to celebrity parties, wined, dined, pursued by up-and-coming young guys, and older, very powerful men.
Why do we listen to news about her father, what he said, what he's feeling, and shake our heads, tut-tut? We have opinions on whether he's lying, or trying to make it himself, and ditto
her mother. We grab and swallow whatever anyone reports on their attitude toward their daughter, greedily enjoying reports of their greed, lack of real love, poor parenting.
Okay, a lot has been written about Hollywood stars being our gods and goddesses. Down through the ages, people have expanded their lives by living through the lives of the famed, powerful, unreachable, untouchable, famous men and women who live in what appears to be a wonderful rich magical other world.
But Lindsay Lohan is not a goddess -- not quite yet. Britney Spears was, and Madonna is, Winona Ryder was, Hepburn was and is, Lady Gaga is ... And on goes the list. (I can put together the female list, not the male, because I'm a female and know what the goddesses have that I don't have.)
We're eating up the news about Lindsay Lohan because she's on her way to goddess-dom. Yes, yes, of course, with her looks, luck and talent she'll get there, but she is in danger.
Why are we so damn hungry?
I think it's a lack of shimmer, excitement, magic, dazzle, danger yes -- danger -- suspense in our own lives. She's got the gifts of the Gods and we don't -- you and I are lacking, minus, some of them ... Maybe beauty, or talent, or luck -- and therefore the possibility of making it into that magical world or any magical world.
Yes, you and I are lacking something ...
So what does it mean? Should we NOT eat up the news about Lindsay Lohan's first hours, how degraded she felt by a strip search, how cooperative she's being, how her sentence is already going to be reduced? The news is everywhere, in the air, like the sparkling dust you see when you squint at a shaft of light.
If you open your eyes, it's not there. Lindsay Lohan isn't there either.
Here is my message to ME: She's a figment made by sellers of glamor that you can't avoid, unless you immerse yourself more deeply in your life, your world, your minutes -- the minutes of your day -- whatever you are doing, where ever you are, seize your power and use it.
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3 comments:
When I was a young girl my mother spent all of her time and money on the glitz. She tried to make me want those shoes, need these clothes and PUT ON THAT MAKE-UP! I got to an age when I realized, it meant nothing. For years now I have been able to avoid Lindsey and Brittney and even Madonna, because I threw out the TV set and the trash cans full of fashion mags that my mother left.
I would not be happy to have to watch another poor women (or even poor Mel) scrutinized for the sake of advertisers. I would rather there be no advertising. And, some may say I live in a dream world, but it seems to me, the other way around.
Thanks Em!
Our entire "developed" world is very sick.
People are brainwashed by television and movies from a very young age to believe that they are small, powerless, individuals.
Marketing and ad campaigns have tricked us into being a society full of greedy individuals who are playing this "game" to get to the top of the corporate/financial/political/social ladder alone.
Greed, selfishness and other poor qualities are glamourized and cherished by the brainwashed masses. While integrity and being a good person seems to rarely be encouraged by the various mainstream medias that most people view, and even when a story warms your heart, they disappear far quicker than all the bullshit gossip.
No one really cares about Lindsay Lohan, but their lives are so meager, boring, and stressful, that people look for anything that helps them to subsconsciously, or consciously, escape their own hardships.
Watching TV after work every night is much easier and mind-numbing than having a get together with people in your community, or helping other people. Most people don't even know their neighbours names.
It's terribly sad, but the institutions that govern our lives in this society, and the people who run them, have figured out how to cull the masses with entertainment and extract more wealth and power from all of us in the process.
I think it's just a sad situation. Fame is like drugs and it becomes addictive. Lohan needs help, and is surrounded by enablers (those poor excuses for parents). With the right people in her life post-prison she should do alright for herself.
I think it's obscene how much people know every sordid detail - and even worse that the "news" thrusts it at us with the gravity of the oil spill or war, as though her misfortunes somehow are more important than the major problems we need to focus on. (Hearkening to your post about Dan Rather - bring him and Brokaw back!)
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