Reality Roll Call

by Mary Jones

There’s a scene in Lindsay Lohan’s “Mean Girls” where Cady is talking to Regina’s mother (Amy Poehler), who proclaims “I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom as her dog gnaws on her hard breast implants and her five-year-old daughter pulls up her shirt to a “Girls Gone Wild” commercial. So when I see Lindsay’s real-life mom Dina “White Oprah” Lohan in tabloids going from club to club, partying with her daughter, acting as a bratty momager, wearing as much makeup (and practically the same clothes) as her 14-year-old daughter Ali, it’s a bit uncomfortable. Especially since the purpose of her new reality series “Living Lohan” is to show how fabulous Dina is, how busy and admired and hated on. She isn’t a regular mom, she’s a cool mom! And if you’re going to drink, she’s rather you’d do it in the house.

Oh, and what a house. “Living Lohan” takes place on Dina’s Long Island estate, where she lives with her two as-yet-uncorrupted children Ali and twelve-year-old Cody and a slew of gigantic SUVs. From this house, Dina is meant to show us how normal she really is, not at all the callous, egotistical stage-mom we have seen on TV and magazines! From this house, Ali’s dreams of music stardom will be made! From this house, we see a mirror into our own lives, and realize it is only our own jealousy that makes us dislike the Lohans, our own poverty and jealousy and ugliness that they have what we could never attain.

Or so Dina tells us. Part of the fun in watching the “Living Lohan” hype machine is the huge gulf between why Dina and Ali Lohan were given a reality show, and why they think they were given one. Dina’s selling the story that she wants to clear up all the rumors about her family and prove that she’s a “good mom.” In fact, she was given a reality show—and we watch that reality show—to witness how terrible a mother, in fact, Dina really is.

The debut episode of any series is concerned with setting up all the pieces, winding up all the toys, and stocking all the shelves with tensions, arcs, conflicts, and attractions. And despite all of Dina’s insistence on how “crazy,” “surreal,” and “out-of-control” her life is, the premier episode of “Living Lohan” has a tough time scraping together enough material to fill a half hour. The show opens with several montages, by way of an introduction, that allow us to see how a “normal” woman handles such extraordinary circumstances. In one section, Dina is called for jury duty, which she tells her assistant Alexis to get her out of. What a spectacular way to open a series! Jury duty! How normal, and how down-to-earth to let a personal assistant tend to it!

The premier then walks us through a day-in-the-life of Dina Lohan. Get up, come downstairs with your hair immaculately coiffed and impervious to water. Check the tabloids online, cut out tabloid articles at the table. Threaten to sue a blogger over a fake sex-tape their website has posted. Allow your preteen children to watch parts of said sex-tape to make sure they realize how fake and totally-not-Lindsay it is. Which, you know, I could totally relate to. Too bad Cody’s soccer practice interrupted the family bonding.

And in many ways, Lindsay really is the star of “Living Lohan.” If I had been accused of exploiting my daughters and leeching off their fame, and if I was given a reality show, I would probably try to avoid any obvious signs of obsession with said daughter. And Though she isn’t physically in the series, Lindsay is always the center of both Dina and Ali’s attention—whether it’s via the tabloids they check, or when Ali says she adores her sister and copy’s her hair, clothes, and makeup. And yes, listening to her say that makes the blood run cold.

The tabloids and paparazzi are probably the other star of the show. Oh my gosh, guys, are you aware the tabloids are totally all up in people’s business? And that they write things that are untrue and totally hurtful and sick? So sick we’re going to read it to Nana out loud during a pancake breakfast? Dina talks about the tabloids in the paranoid, vicious sort of way that makes me think they actually got something right. I have a feeling Dina resents the warts-and-all school of 21^st century journalism because she has a lot she wants to hide, and is annoyed she’s been found out. After all, if the tabloids really were so malicious and destructive, she wouldn’t be pushing for Ali’s music career.

The music career subplot of the premier is a bit embarrassing, as well. In three weeks, Ali’s demo needs to be recorded, so Dina’s shopping around for producers, because the one’s the studios sent over “aren’t Ali’s kind of music, and Ali isn’t going to sing something she doesn’t believe in.” As Dina talks on the phone with a record company representative, it is clear she is enjoying her ignorant condescension towards the poor woman, who (rightly and rationally) points out that this is only a demo, and three weeks is a cutthroat amount of time to begin with.

Clearly knowing better, Dina invites over a producer named Jeremy who has been stalking her on AIM. Jeremy’s in his mid-to-late twenties, terribly hot, and since his tracks are terribly mediocre I can only imagine there is a cougar-motivation behind his employment. He seems sweet, but also slightly opportunistic and shady, so Dina, as the protective mother, decides to leave Jeremy and Ali alone for several hours. There’s a lot of awkward eye batting as Ali clearly flirts with Jeremy in the slapdash and obvious way that was all-too-familiar to me from my junior high days. However, the innocence of this flirtation is corrupted by Dina’s brusque come-ons and Jeremy’s overall skeeziness.

Overall, the premier of “Living Lohan” is a mishmash of brattiness and brashness, starring that girl in high school who thought everyone was jealous of her, then grew up to get herpes and work as a manager at Hooters. Time will tell if it’s a trainwreck worthy watching. But I’m confident.