Despite the fact that she has the IRS breathing down her neck, her recent film The Canyons has been rejected by Sundance, and she’s an all-around pain the ass to work with (according to this in-depth yet rather damaging article in the New York Times), Lindsay Lohan has turned down an offer to join the cast of Dancing with the Stars – reportedly worth $500,000.
Ostensibly, this seems like a terrible move on Lohan’s part – and a potential act of desperation for DTWS, which might be trying to rebound from their failed attempt to grab audiences through an All-Star-based season. However, DTWS’s attempt at securing Lohan may be the precise reason why she’s avoiding it at all costs.
According to Deadline.com, one reason why the most recent season of DTWS floundered was because “people didn’t want to see people who could dance. They wanted people who couldn’t dance.” If this is accurate, then Lohan and her reputation are surefire remedies for their sagging ratings. This is not to say that Lohan can’t dance. She reportedly spends enough time in clubs to pick up a few moves. But rather, the drama that follows Lohan around like her shadow would surely provide built-in drama for the reality series.
At the same time, it would – presumably – extinguish little of the Lohan lore of problems, outbursts, and tantrums that comprise her history. On the one hand, a reality show could be the opportunity to purports to want in order to prove that she’s changes her ways and wants to get back into focusing on becoming a serious actress. On the other, it could tumble that last precarious bit of opportunity Lohan seems to believe still exists that is not afforded by straightforward pornography.
This situation is much sadder than a simple report of rejection. It is a compendium of disappointments. Lohan herself, though she claims “dignity,” can’t hold it together long enough to expose herself on a weekly program wherein mistakes and slipups – literal and figurative — are part of the narrative arc and cannot be edited out in post-production. It also further elucidates her fragility. Lohan has long been associated with “train wreck,” and it’s likely that this show would confirm this on live television, but the criticism endemic to this series could also shatter her – even if she does nothing wrong. The show’s premise and appeal – like any other televised talent competition – is to construct judgment with the sympathetic judge, the one that looks from a business perspective, and the one paid to be rude and apathetic.
No doubt someone would bring up her “water bottles,” her compromising, underwearless photos caught by paparazzi, her stints in jail, her numerous court appearances, her traffic accidents, the bomb that was Liz & Dick, or the rejection of The Canyons. And then there’s the potential that she can’t dance, or can’t dance as well as others on the stage. She’ll once again be second-, third-, or fourth-rate.
She’ll be mocked on live television, regardless of her success on the show. She’ll become the full caricature of Lindsay Lohan.
The New York Times article is both damning and sympathetic. She has talent. She has her moments and – at times – she knows how to manipulate both the audience and the camera.
But turning down this show might do more to keep the dissipating pulse that is her career beating.
