The gossip and movie sites are all abuzz about Lindsay Lohan's insistence on doing a nude scene in an independent film thinking it would revive her stagnant career and get her "respect" as an mature actress.
The question: Will the nude scene jump-start her career?
The answer: No.
Now some may ask: Jodie Foster did nudity in The Accused, and it boosted her career from former child star to mature movie star and won her an Academy Award, so why not Lohan?
Because Jodie Foster already had an Academy Award nomination under her belt, as well as a reputation from her days as a child star as a hard worker who did what she believes best for the part. Also, the film was a gritty drama about sexual violence, not a cheap attempt at trading titillation for publicity.
Lohan on the other hand has a reputation for unreliability, addictive behaviour, and shameless pandering for media attention.
See the difference?
Plus, the prurient attraction of an actress doing a nude scene that actually is intended to titillate is an element of erotic mystery on the part of the actress.
Thanks to Lohan's questionable fashion / lifestyle choices and the internet, there is no mystery to anyone on this planet except for a Kazakhstani goatherd named Ughash who is too cheap to upgrade from his dial-up connection to DSL.
There's a second question...
Okay, so she's been to rehab, Robert Downey Jr. had a terrible drug problem and not only is he still working, he's on the verge of a jump to the A-List this summer, why not Lohan?
It all boils down to what I think Hollywood is not paying enough attention to.
Goodwill.
I don't recall hearing anything about Robert Downey Jr. behaving badly on set, or being anything other than as professional a man in his condition could be. He didn't get a reputation for being spoiled, troublesome brat who would show up late for work, if at all, endangering the schedule, and thus the livelihoods of cast-mates and crew because he was partying all night.
His problems were destroying him all right, but he wasn't actively trying to take everyone else down with him.
And his struggle to get clean, and get back to work was positively heroic. When completion bond companies gave him grief, he didn't whine about it, he accepted the things that he could not change, and changed the things he could by working like a mule. That dedication to his health and his work won him a hell of a lot of goodwill not only with his Hollywood colleagues, but with the audience as well. People rooted for him, and now it seems that he's going to have one hell of a summer, and folks feel he deserves it, because he earned it.
Lohan on the other hand, seems to want things quick and easy. She thinks that constant attention will keep her a star, when it was the constant attention of her obnoxious antics was what ruined her career in the first place.
What could Lohan do to revive her career?
First, sell everything, the houses, cars, anything for a cash nest-egg.
Get the hell out of the greater Los Angeles area.
Get clean, for real, and give up partying.
Give up the skanky public behaviour that made her a tabloid darling.
Find a place where she could study acting, out of the public eye. Maybe do off-Broadway theatre, indie films, and work, work, work like that proverbial mule.
It's the only way to beat the image she has an unreliable, addled, party skank.
And she has to commit to it, 110%.
No half measures, because real stardom, where the audience loves them for being a star, not for the bitchy schadenfreude of watching their fall, is something that has to be earned the hard way.
It's the only way.
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