Bad Girls
So by now you've probably heard the news, Ms. Lohan is arrested for DUI and they say cocaine was found in her crashed up vehicle. Not many people are surprised that yet another young superstar has gone the way of driving while intoxicated - putting others and themselves at serious risk. Ms. Hilton will be heading to prison soon to pay for her crime and Ms. Richie is up for her hearing soon - for those of you who forgot - she was arrested after driving the WRONG way on the freeway! Now it'd be too easy to just continue to dump on privileged and famous young women who no doubt have become more famous from all the dumping by the media that they endure. I'd rather like to introduce something into the argument that we don't often hear being covered on news outlets or gossip rags, quite frankly because it's not a good sound bite - and that my friends is compassion.
Now I say compassion and not forgiveness. I say compassion and not understanding. What these women have done by putting innocent lives at risk by driving while intoxicated is inexcusable. What I want to look at is how we as a society and a media treat young women in the media - building them up to tear them down, discussing every angle of their sexual exploits, many before they are even 18 years old. We put teenagers on the covers of magazines wearing nothing but a forced, rehearsed smile -- an immitation of what they believe to be a 'sexy woman'. We discuss their bodies as though they are common property and really any of our business. We count their calories and watch for when their thighs touch and then we criticize them until starvation. We are engaged in their demonic struggles with substance abuse - we love to see the pictures of them partying - buying up the photos of their trashed Saturday nights - disregarding that most of them are underage when we start to see them fuzzy headed and smiling pretty in the paparazzi photos.
We have an incredibly unhealthy relatinoship with celebrtiy in this culture and particularly young female celebrtiies. We can judge them all we want - but replace their photos and stories with the stories of another 19 year old in your life. Or a 22 year old. Or a 17 year old. See if you can recall those years of your life and how the person you were (or are) might react to the pressures placed upon you not juts by one or two people but by millions.
I live working one foot in Hollywood and one foot in the heartland of America. I know and have worked with some of the young women we read about in gossip magazines. I am just as confused nad conflicted by my love/hate relaitonship with celebrity. This weekend, watching another young women, clearing battling a drug/alchohol addiction in public get to the point where she is self-destructing and again endangering the lives of people in my community - just makes me heartbroken. When we do we stop short of supporting juicy headlines in favor of reaching out and helping a life? Lindsay Lohan will be 21 in July. Many would say she is old enough to live with her consequences. But let's not forget for one second that she is just like us. Minus the privilege and money - she is a young woman clearly lost and searching, sad and addicted, out of control and most likely praying for someone to help her.
Compassion not redemption. Compassion not allowance. Compassion not criticism.
Think about it.
Now I say compassion and not forgiveness. I say compassion and not understanding. What these women have done by putting innocent lives at risk by driving while intoxicated is inexcusable. What I want to look at is how we as a society and a media treat young women in the media - building them up to tear them down, discussing every angle of their sexual exploits, many before they are even 18 years old. We put teenagers on the covers of magazines wearing nothing but a forced, rehearsed smile -- an immitation of what they believe to be a 'sexy woman'. We discuss their bodies as though they are common property and really any of our business. We count their calories and watch for when their thighs touch and then we criticize them until starvation. We are engaged in their demonic struggles with substance abuse - we love to see the pictures of them partying - buying up the photos of their trashed Saturday nights - disregarding that most of them are underage when we start to see them fuzzy headed and smiling pretty in the paparazzi photos.
We have an incredibly unhealthy relatinoship with celebrtiy in this culture and particularly young female celebrtiies. We can judge them all we want - but replace their photos and stories with the stories of another 19 year old in your life. Or a 22 year old. Or a 17 year old. See if you can recall those years of your life and how the person you were (or are) might react to the pressures placed upon you not juts by one or two people but by millions.
I live working one foot in Hollywood and one foot in the heartland of America. I know and have worked with some of the young women we read about in gossip magazines. I am just as confused nad conflicted by my love/hate relaitonship with celebrity. This weekend, watching another young women, clearing battling a drug/alchohol addiction in public get to the point where she is self-destructing and again endangering the lives of people in my community - just makes me heartbroken. When we do we stop short of supporting juicy headlines in favor of reaching out and helping a life? Lindsay Lohan will be 21 in July. Many would say she is old enough to live with her consequences. But let's not forget for one second that she is just like us. Minus the privilege and money - she is a young woman clearly lost and searching, sad and addicted, out of control and most likely praying for someone to help her.
Compassion not redemption. Compassion not allowance. Compassion not criticism.
Think about it.
posted by Jess at 9:04 PM
8 Comments:
I think there are two issues that are lacking. I agree that compassion is missing - that very few people truly care. And I believe that the second element is community.
I think that, as time goes on, there's a loss of community, a lack of people getting together and taking a stand.
I also suspect that if more people embraced compassion and community, we could all grow as a society. We could all begin to recognize the human-ness that is our shared experience; we just might learn that obsessively watching and waiting, wondering what someone will do only trips all of us up in the end.
Sorry, but I completely disagree with you. The difference between Lindsay Lohan and other 19 year olds I know is that other 19 year olds do not court the attention of the papparazzi, they do not build careers on their bodies, they do not give interviews where they reveal the details of their sex lives. You can be a Hollywood actress and avoid the photographers. You don't have to go to the trendiest clubs and restaurants every night of the week. These girls make choices. They are not children for heaven's sake! When I was 20 I was working and finishing college. I had (and have) good relationships with my family and friends. Part of that is luck, but a bigger part is that I made wise choices. I refuse to feel sorry for WOMEN who repeatedly make foolish decisions about their lives.
I was really worked up when I wrote that last night, and this morning I was trying to figure out why. Because honestly, what do I care if Lindsay Lohan wants to do drugs and crash her car and have random sex with strangers? Then I went to work (I'm a teacher) and that's when I realized that the reason I feel such venom toward these women is that they're not just hurting themselves. I feel like they're setting women as a collective group back decades. Because for every amazing thing that Hillary or Condoleeza does to change the world, Lindsay or some other young actress does something stupid and ends up on the front page of the newspaper, telling little girls through their actions that looking cute and acting dumb are a great way to get through life. I'm glad I read your blog, actually, so I could figure that out for myself.
Personnaly i feel that the reasons of these celebs being quoted as bad girls because when they get some power and freedom on thier head, they feel as the owner of the world and are not afraid to breaks rules and since we look up to them as heros we start making a big issuse while if there was any other odinary person instead of them. then things would not have been that noticed.
As a twelve year old girl, i feel that these situations are some which teach us lessons for life.
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Maybe, we are too hard on these young women, but at the same time maybe us being hard on them is us being hard on ourselves. I have noticed (in myself) that the negative things that I pick out about these celebrities are the very things that I dislike about myself. Is this Healthy or unhealthy? That's what I'm not so sure about.
Hi guys - I totally hear you -- and thanks for your comments....
Nikki - I think it's hard to call some of these 19 year old's women when they have been the bread winner of their families since they were 11 years old. I can't imagine what kind of reverse pressure that puts on a child to take care of everyone else. Maybe we know the difference in making decisions because we had parental influence that helped us - but a lot of these starlets don't. that doesn't make their actions excusable but i do think the media is so quick to say they are 'bad' when what they've done is make bad choices. we are always so relegated as women to one thing or another. good/bad virgin/whore- and i think it's important that we look at the whole picture. that's what i was trying to get at with my compassion statement.
and biz of words - yes, we are missing community in a big way. hollywood media substituting for community doesn't cut it. us weekly isn't community. it's gossip.
and daman - you rule! i wish at 12 i had the wisdom you posess. keep rockin!!
xoxo to you all
Jess
Hey Jess,
I think we're just going to have to disagree here. Is it a lot of pressure on Lindsay Lohan? Yeah, I definitely agree with that. But I've seen much greater pressure on girls who have not had her advantages, and they have made responsible choices to live healthy productive lives. As a teacher in a low-income school, I see kids all the time who have to grow up early because their parents do not live up to their roles. To be blunt, these kids are often racial minorities with very little money. Many of them don't even speak fluent English. And yet, there they are, feeding the younger ones, getting everyone to school on time, making sure everyone is taken care of. It's a really big burden that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it's possible to handle that burden gracefully and responsibly. Lindsay Lohan and other young starlets have all the advantages that their money and race can buy them (bravo to Al Sharpton for his remarks about Paris Hilton today). Yet they have still made a mess of their lives.
And when one of my seven-year-old students mentioned those pictures of Lindsay, mostly likely drugged out of her mind and playing with knives, I was very glad that I will probably never come face to face with her. It wouldn't be pretty.
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