Since reading an interesting discussion of Micheal Richards on Radical Hapa, I've been following the Richards story anyplace I could. (Admittedly, I'm mostly looking for evidence to support my theory that Richards is having a serious mental breakdown. The YouTube of his apology on Letterman disturbed me. I've seen that exact sort of vacant look before. Nothing good came after it.)
Anyway, that's how I discovered how much people seem to hate Lindsey Lohan. The latest bit of fun is mocking her for sending out a poorly-written statement about the death of Robert Altman. You can click that link and read the statement. Now, this statement is badly written, don't get me wrong. But Lohan only has a high school education, if that, and the depressing truth is that I've seen worse from SAT students and some GRE students who are college graduates.
And when I read it, I believe she was terribly upset.
But naturally, the gossip columns are eating her alive over it, also claiming that she got drunk and rowdy at a dinner for GQ magazine, an allegation, by the way, that famous UU Keith Olbermann totally denies and he was sitting a few tables away from Lohan.
This has reminded me why I don't like gossip columns and usually don't read them. There's just a bizarre hatefulness there. The column mocks her for ending her statement on Altman with the phrase "Be Adequate" (which she admittedly mispells.) Does the column apologize or print a correction or update of any sort when people in the comments point out that praising a good performance as "adequate" was a trademak of Altman's? (A fact that can be verified on Google in about twenty seconds. But hey, since when to gossip columnists research?)
Of course not. Because they are a gossip column and "drunken Lindsey Lohan ends her statement on Robert Altman with a phrase that makes no sense" is a much more interesting story than the truth.
In the comments on the first Salon gossip column I read mentioning Lohan, a commenter writes "an Open Letter to Drew Barrymore" where he asks the reformed party girl to take Lohan out for coffee and a long talk.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if that happened?
CC
5 comments:
Yes, her letter was poorly written and misspelled, but your critique of her critics was spot on. To begin with, they shouldn't have even needed to Google "be adequate"; they work in the industry, they should know.
They should also realize that those who do not love to write can be terrified by a blank sheet of paper, and lose coherence in the attempt to be formal and proper. Not to mention the minor detail that she herself was quite upset.
Why couldn't they take note of the fact that she wrote a fairly long and heartfelt letter of condolence- something most kids her age would not have attempted? To me, the fact of the letter means much more than the quality of it.
I saw a news brief about this on imdb. Reportedly, according to her spokesperson, Lindsay wrote this on her Blackberry right away.
Many gossip columnists just go too far with their bitterness and spite.
They are being too hard on her, but criticism of your smallest missteps is a side effect of being famous. Unfortunately, the consequence probably will be to make Ms. Lohan less spontaneous, more guarded and edited by various handlers, and thus less of an easy target for the gossips.
Along somewhat similar lines, is it just me or is this the stupidest thing Michael Kinsley's ever said?
PG - I don't know anything about his previous writings, but this article is really unfocused. Maybe it was edited to death. Or maybe it was written with one eye on the tv screen. That last paragraph seems to come totally out of left field.
LaReinaCobre,
I'm inclined to agree with your "one eye on the TV screen" theory. I doubt that it was edited at all, given that Kinsley used to be Slate's EIC and they're none too heavy on the editorial process as it is. He's normally a good writer, but to me, the whole column seemed to come totally out of left field.
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