Living Lohan Episode 3: “Mean Girls”

by Mary Jones

This week, Living Lohan finally brings us an episode that has the potential to make some sort of social statement, to actually document something more substantial than where Lindsay Lohan’s mother gets her nails done. Fourteen is a hellish age—everyone knows this. But girls know it more than anyone. Having attended an all-girl school in Dallas when I was Ali Lohan’s age, I can report first hand that any female who survives 7^th and 8^th grade without major life-long neuroses is a true champion. While boys beat up on each other and terrorize physically, fourteen year old girls are running their own little Abu Ghraibs with various forms of psychological torture that would make the CIA balk.

This week, Living Lohan is all about the horror and shame of junior-high girls. It begins with a block party, which apparently in Long Island are hooker training camps. Seriously, when did the mothers of this nation decide it was ok to let their daughter run around in 6- inch shorts OUTSIDE an aquatic setting? A group of these vampiric future-baby-mamas crowd around Ali, shouting things like “Hey Ali, are you going to rehab?” (Apparently, this was filmed during the Lindsay’s Cirque Lodge stint).

We cut back to Casa di Lohan. Ali’s up in her room on the computer, when Dina comes in and asks what’s wrong. In typical teenage fashion, Ali shrugs and says “Nothing” in a way that’s so clearly something, any sensible parent would immediately have sat down on the bed to discuss it. But Dina “Amazing Single Mom and Manager” Lohan manages to make it all about her: “Well you don’t have to be rude to me,” she snaps before she slams Ali’s door.

And that, my friends, is Dina Lohan. Part of the tragedy of this episode is watching how Dina manages to turn every situation into HER drama, and HER tragedy. So when the school calls and says that the bullying has gotten so bad they recommend Ali remain at home for a day or so, we get this: “Oh boy, here we go again. Mean Girls 2. Calling Tina Fey.” So yeah, instead of this being about Ali, Dina uses this moment to remind us that her daughter, Lindsay, was totally in a movie called Mean Girls. I don’t know if you know. This was so hammy even my father had to chime in, “Mean Girls? She has to bring in her daughter’s movie, doesn’t she? Any gratuitous thing to bring up Lindsay”

Rather than really exploring the issue of why young girls torture each other, Dina deals with the whole situation in the lamest, shallowest way humanly possible: by taking Ali to an urban performance art space for one afternoon. Because nothing heals a white person’s soul so much as seeing underprivileged black teenagers singing and dancing in a community center. For two hours.

This experience could have been handled in a sensitive way, but of course wasn’t. We get to see Ali doing her nails in the Escalade, Ali looking bored during the performance, Ali doing white-girl dancing, and Dina jumping in on the action, spinning and dancing right in the middle of the group. The fact that they were the only white people in the room made the whole thing somehow worse, like they were tourists. There’s something about the honest exuberance of the Impact kids juxtaposed against the calculated “excitement” of the Lohans which made me a bit nauseated.

By the way, while I don’t want to be the sort of blogger who rips on a teenage girl’s appearance, Ali Lohan’s confessionals are truly terrifying. Her painted eyebrows, liquid eyeliner, and heavy blush make her look a very, very rough 30. Each episode it gets worse. Someone should really tell Dina that tween girls should look a little less like Thai girly-boys. And while I’m on the subject of randomly chiming in on the Lohans appearance, I would like to add that Michael Lohan Jr. is totally the hottest family member, and Dina looks like she’s always sucking on a lemon. Just wanted to get that out there.

The episode ends up not with any sort of resolution of the bullying issue, but a reminder that this show is really about the Amazing Single Mom and Manager Dina Lohan who is totally going to make Ali a music star. We are forced to endure Ali’s vocal exercises, which are like nails on a chalkboard—and I’m not being snarky. She sounds like me. She better thank ProTools in her prayers.

The worst part of this segment, by far, is when Eileen, a family friend (and Dina’s purported best friend) comes over. She looks like she’s had a genuinely tough life, and we learn her daughter died of meningitis. So of course it’s wonderful to see Dina crying and talking about how much Eileen’s struggle means to HER, Dina, Amazing Single Mom and Manager. As if that wasn’t sick enough, Caitlin, Eileen’s dead daughter, has journals filled with old poetry. And despite the fact that earlier in the episode, Ali claims that writing music helps her deal with her pain, when Ali’s vocal coach asks her for the song lyrics she was supposed to write, Ali has nothing written. She decides to use Caitlin’s poetry because she doesn’t feel like writing her own. But it isn’t plagiarism, it’s a tribute, natch you guys.

The episode ends with Dina trying to justify allowing Access Hollywood to interview Ali. “With Lindsay I didn’t have to do this, because there were no weekly tabloids. Ali’s getting a new level of success, and each level brings new, loaded questions from the press.” Never mind that the weekly tabloids have been around since the 80’s. I feel like Dina Lohan feels that if she tells herself something enough times, it’s true. For example: She is an Awesome Single Mom and Manager.