What We Can Learn From The Tribulations Of Lindsay Lohan’s Life
by Jeff Roberts
Lohan, 11 years old.
Over the past 15 years the world has
watched Lindsay Lohan transform from a young, hopeful actress to a lost
and, as some would say, over-privileged, victim to the Hollywood
machine, a vicious world of egos, drugs and disillusionment which has
left many unfortunate artists washed up or, even more horribly, dead.
Lohan, 25 years old.
Her struggles as a recovering addict
have garnered more worry from the public than anything, as family and
friends of the 27 year old starlet have scrambled to try and create for
her a trouble-free path to salvation, a path that hasn’t gone untainted
in the last year.
After leaving rehab for the 6th
time last summer, Lohan was approached by Oprah to film a candid
documentary mini-series for the OWN network which originally aimed to
showcase Lohan’s long awaited severance from her problem-stricken
lifestyle and her rise to wellness and success. The mini-series turned
out to be painful realization for viewers: Lohan is battling a serious
illness.
I must admit what originally drew my
attention to the show was the hope that I would finally see Lohan’s
tragic over-drawn narrative resolve itself. I wasn’t interested in the
celebrity gossip, but the doors to Lindsay’s life were being opened so
that the world could at last have a fair-minded understanding of her
story, and so I took the opportunity to learn. I wanted the happy
ending; I believe all beings ultimately want to see these happy endings
for one another.
At first I was blown away and irritated
by Lohan’s spoiled antics. She was tardy, unprofessional, ungrateful,
immature and flat-out rude to the group of people trying to help her
succeed in her recovery. The series introduced the viewers to a group of
determined people who surrounded Lindsay 24/7 and who wanted nothing
more than to help Lindsay create a new, healthy life for herself in New
York City. This group included a motivational life coach, a sober coach
who came from Lindsay’s rehab center, old friends and an indomitable
assistant with enough patience to wait on the entire world, to name a
few. They stuck through some of the most agonizing requests from a star
I’d ever seen, like organizing the warehouse sized storage facility
which housed all of Lindsay’s clothes and personal belongings from Los
Angeles, or her refusal to film on days she didn’t want to, breaching
the contract the documentary production company had pre-established with
Lindsay (*I later discovered Lindsay had a miscarriage during the time
when she was refusing to film, a well deserved excuse.) I felt very
disappointed in Lindsay, I felt like she was spitting on one of the last
opportunities that would be given to her to amend her lifetime of
unhealthy choices.
But then I came to a realization about
myself and the celebrity culture. I decided to let go of my judgement
and frustration surrounding Lindsay’s unsatisfying story. I let go of my
need for the happy ending and became just a neutral observer of her
life, which provided me with a higher understanding and perspective on
the situation.
Lindsay is a broken product of the
Hollywood machine and an unstable family life which has been destroyed
by money, drugs and the conditions of her early fame. Hey mother is also
a recovering alcoholic, her father a Wall Street criminal, both of whom
provided a dysfunctional environment for Lindsay and her siblings
growing up. Moving away from the normal judgement that we so easily
place upon stars, I felt compassion for a girl who, like so many other
young artists, was enveloped into a world too fast for her own good. I
can only imagine the type of developmental blockages someone faces as a
child growing up in the fame culture.
Society feeds this machine every day,
buying into advertisements, tabloids and investing and attaching our
opinions and judgements to these celebrity lives as if they owe us
something. The reverse can also be said about celebrities, that they attach themselves to our attention and constantly expect something from us, because without the latter relationship this world could not exist.
But this relationship that we have with
one another is the culprit of the problem of celebrity-fan culture. We
expect, we judge and we blame. These things are easy to do when it comes
to ‘rich’ people’s lives. We easily jump to these perspectives and
desensitize ourselves from the fact that these people are human beings.
When we judge these people’s lives, we are doing nothing to perpetuate
the betterment of our world.
Instead, by choosing to observe and understand from the higher perspective, we can learn from these kinds of circumstances.
In the end, I look at Lindsay not as the
celebrity who the world loves to hate and who has been given too many
chances, but as a vulnerable girl who has lived out her youthful choices
in front of the world. She is fighting an illness that has warped the
foundations of her morals and logic, and she has been brave enough to
let the world see this. And I have to give it to her, she is trying.
She is trying to amend her lifetime of unhealthy choices and
self-sabotage. Her life stands as a microcosm of a bigger issue that
involves not only the Hollywood machine, but the observers (us) of this
machine as well.
From her documentary series “Lindsay” on the OWN network,
“You guys love this shit when I cry..
It’s a really fucked up disease and it’s really scary. I have
addictions, but I’m not your typical addict, that’s not who I am. I’m a
kind person, I know the difference between right and wrong, and idiotic,
I know that… [wiping away tears with a tissue]. I have things that I
can do [now] or people who I can surround myself with or not be
with, I worked with a shaman and did a cleanse, had a really
eye-opening experience of ayahuasca, it was really intense. I saw my
whole life in front of me, and I had to let go of things from the past
that I was trying to hold onto that were dark in my life. I saw myself
being born. And I feel different ever since that… it’s being okay with
the wreckage of my past and starting fresh. It was hard in the beginning
of this series, it was scary. But now I’m working again, I’m doing good
and I don’t want to mess with that. It feels good. The biggest thing
I’ve learned from this experience is that I have that fire back in me. I
have that aggressiveness I used to have to keep going, to be happy, I’m
feeding my soul again. That feels incredible, thank you.”
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