Incredibly Interesting Analysis

TBS was airing "Mean Girls" all weekend in their bizarre "let's show the same movie 38 times in a row" programming format they seem to have decided makes the most sense. I suppose their crack team of humor scientists ("we know funny") has tested this successfully, so who am I to quibble?

I was reminded of how incredibly hilarious the movie is - it's really a shining counterexample to my whole "women aren't funny" generalization - Tina Fey's screenplay is almost perfect, and everyone's comic timing is spot on. The movie was something of a Lindsay Lohan phenomenon when it came out, but now that some time has passed, I was able to appreciate how many laugh-out-loud moments there were.

What really jumped out at me, though, was how different Lindsay Lohan looked as compared to her semi-freaky look today. Conceptually I knew this - she's certainly photographed often enough - but it was still jarring to see onscreen. I don't happen to think she's particularly attractive, (then or now), but there was a time when I was decidedly in the minorty with that belief.

I remember thinking at the time that as "hot" as everyone seemed to think she was, she was also noticeably bigger than her older costars, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert (who's VERY thin) and Amanda Seyfried (she plays the dumb one). Don't get me wrong - by no stretch of the imagination was she big, but Hollywood has different standards. And given her young age, you could tell that she hadn't quite filled out her frame yet - it was apparent that her natural size would be bigger.

Alas, what is a budding starlet to do? Lindsay Lohan has a pretty similar 1990s counterpart: Alicia Silverstone. It's easy to forget how big a deal Alicia Silverstone was in the mid-1990s. "Clueless" was the "Mean Girls" of the 90s, an absurdly huge hit that propelled Silverstone to instant superstar status. Girls aspired to be like her, and guys drooled over her. She was supposed to symbolize a generation - things were so out of control that she signed a three-picture, $10 million production deal with Sony where she got first look at scripts and projects. That probably doesn't sound like a lot now, but trust me, it was a huge deal at the time to give a teenage girl that kind of money and that kind of artistic control. Silverstone wound up greenlighting and starring in "Excess Baggage", which was so bad that 1) my two friends who saw it cracked jokes about it for like a year and 2) they are literally the only people I know who have ever seen the movie.

As you surely remember, her downfall was triggered by a "sudden" weight gain of 15 or 20 pounds that completely freaked everyone out, and was all over the tabloids. It must have been very tough to have been her at the time, and have her weight scrutinized in magazines everywhere. Of course, the weight gain wasn't that sudden and it wasn't that surprising. She was just a girl who was naturally not super skinny, but became famous as a teenager, before she had filled out to her natural weight. When she got to that natural weight, everyone completely lost their shit, no one liked her, she happened to be in some bad projects, and just like that, her time as a star was finished.

There were really only two options for Linday Lohan - one was just to be her natural size and see what comes of that, railing against the "thin establishment" and hope for the best a la Kate Winslet. Or there was the other, more probable route of partying, alcoholism and eating disorders.

We know which route she took.

I don't think she'll remain relevant much longer - I've yet to see that she's a compelling actress, and partying to stay in the limelight only takes you so far. Her attempt at a singing career didn't go as badly as Eddie Murphy's (my girl wants to....party all the time party all the time party all the tiiiiimmmmeee), but it's safe to say that's going nowhere as well.

At least she was in one good movie, which I guess is better than most people can say. I would tell you to watch it again, but TBS will air it approximately 942 times in 2007, so there's no chance you'll miss it. It's really very nice of them.

As for Miss Lohan, she's bound to be replaced by the next big thing any day now, but there should still be some fun times left. I can't wait for her Access Hollywood post-rehab interview, her temporary foray into a Broadway show (my guess is "Chicago"), marriage to some successful person outside of Hollywood, autobiography, and E! True Hollywood Story. Those should all be good times.