Stop Picking On Lindsay Lohan
Why do some people rejoice in the unraveling of a life and career?
Article
By REBECCA MACATEE
Both of my legs are covered in ghastly, purple bruises. I'm not a soccer player, and I don't have an abusive boyfriend. You might say I'm a party girl.
My bruises come from clumsily crashing onto a concrete New York City sidewalk. I'd been out with some girlfriends, was wearing too-tall stilettos and a few glasses of champagne had disturbed my sense of balance.
After taking that tumble, I laughed a little too loudly, reassured some good Samaritans that I was okay, hopped right back up and continued on with my night. It was a fun evening with my girls—there was no alcohol poisoning, no random hookups, no brushes with the law. I made it home safely and into work on time the next morning.
Aside from a friend's Twitter posting about my fall, there was no evidence of the trouble I'd been up to the night before. There were no viral videos of me hitting the pavement, no photographs of me flipping off aggressive paparazzi, and no hearsay reports of how "wasted" I had been at the club.
But I'm not Lindsay Lohan, the actress who yesterday began a 90-day jail sentence for violating the terms of her probation, set in 2007 after she pleaded no contest to charges of drunk driving and being under the influence of cocaine.
I didn't star in a feature film when I was 11 years old, or support my family financially before I'd even hit puberty. I don't have a father who talks publicly about my intimate struggles in order to make a few bucks. Paparazzi don't stalk me 24 hours a day to capture my every mistake. And tabloids don't dominate newsstands by exaggerating my wild partying. In other words, there's not a cruel cultural obsession with rejoicing in the apparent unraveling of my life and career.
Of course, my behaviors are not nearly as extreme as Ms. Lohan's. I've never been a part of a car chase or a drug bust nor, thankfully, have I struggled with anorexia or substance addiction. But, like any 24-year-old girl, I make mistakes and have my regrets. It's just that the world isn't watching me every step of the way.
Most people can't begin to relate to Ms. Lohan's experiences of childhood stardom, of being lauded as impossibly talented and beautiful while being thrust into a world of unlimited privilege. Obstacles that deter most of us in our formative years didn't exist for her. Money was not an issue, drugs and alcohol were readily available, parental supervision was minimal, and hired professionals apparently couldn't tell her "no."
I like to think that if I had been a celebrity at a young age, I would have been like Natalie Portman or Dakota Fanning, starlets who stayed grounded and career-focused despite their surreal careers. But I can imagine how easily one can give into the dangerous temptations that Ms. Lohan did.
Drunk driving is deplorable. Blowing off court-ordered responsibilities and showing up to trial with expletives scrawled on your fingernails is not the way to garner respect. And Ms. Lohan is not above the law.
But eating disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction and apparent psychological illness should not be laughed at by the American public. Since I can't guarantee that I wouldn't have succumbed to similar demons had I lived a life like Ms. Lohan's, I won't gawk at her condition, and I will root for her to get the help she desperately needs.
She's a talented actress and, admit it, we all hope for a Lohan cameo in the upcoming "Mean Girls" sequel.
Ms. Macatee is a writer in New York.
) I think that this is a good one. What does she have in common with Britney Spears? She was a meal ticket for her greedy parents, unlike Dakota Fanning, etc who seemed to have been protected and nurtured by their parents. That said, while many express concern and hope for her future, I do hear a lot of negativity with regard to her "entitlement". I think this piece puts it into some perspective. 
Just do everything the opposite of them and the kids should come out okay. 
