Amanda Bynes: Another Starlet Crashes

My daughter is fifteen. Over the past decade and a half, she and I have gone through distinct audio-visual phases together. First, there were Teletubbies (omg — should I assume that's what acid feels like?) and Elmo, then we went through a Disney Princess stage, several seasons of The Saddle Club, and eventually into live action teen movies like Princess Diaries and Freaky Friday. 

When my daughter liked a particular movie, she liked it. I mean, she really liked it. I can't begin to estimate how many times we watched Amanda Bynes in What A Girl Wants.

I didn't mind. (Or, after the third or fourth dozen time, it's probably more accurate to say, I didn't mind much.) The movie had a lot going for it: gorgeous shots of New York and London (two of my favorite cities); a clever update of Cinderella, complete with a thoroughly evil stepmother and stepsister; and an independent heroine who realizes that she has to be true to herself, prompting her hunky young boyfriend to offer one of my all-time favorite lines of teen advice:

"Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you're born to stand out?"

Hear that, girls?

After all the cartoons and puppets, What A Girl Wants was a particularly welcome pleasure for this particular mamma. Why? Two words: Colin Firth. Yes, the penultimate Mr. Darcy, himself, is the heroine's dad. Actually, I remember explaining to my daughter and a friend that I thought Daphne's father was dreamy. "Eeeeewwww!" they responded in unified dismay. As healthy American tweens, they only had eyes for the aforementioned hunky boyfriend.

And now, like Lindsay Lohan before her, promising young actress Amanda Bynes has made it difficult to watch her earlier work without being distracted — and disturbed — by her current crazies.

Bynes has been a star for more than half her life, starting with Nickelodeon's The Amanda Show when she was just thirteen. By the time she appeared in What A Girl Wants, she was already a familiar face, a household name, and the winner of a coveted (if slimed) Kids' Choice Award. And afterwards, she went on to do a series of similar teen films, including She's The Man (a high school version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night), Hairspray, Sydney White and Easy A.

She seemed like a bright young actress with a bright long future. In fact, in any live appearances and interviews from those years, Bynes seems like the anti-starlet. Sober. Smart. Down-to-Earth.

Not so much anymore.

Three years ago, Bynes tweeted that she was retiring. A few months later, she updated and assured fans she was "unretiring." And then she hit a wall — as well as several automobiles, including a police cruiser, while she was DUI. An early and enthusiastic devotee of social media, much of her private drama has played out on Twitter. She publicly asked President Obama for help, she posed for bizarre and lewd selfies, and raged on pop star Rihanna. At this week's court appearance, she wore a cartoonish blonde wig, denied everything, and threatened to sue. 

Throughout, sadly, Amanda Bynes has been her own worst enemy. There's so much pressure to "live out loud." Today's tweens, teens and young adults equate posting with real life. But, putting it all out there is even more pitiful when what's on display is a legitimate breakdown.

I can only hope that Bynes gets it back together. I also hope that Amanda's former fans, like my daughter and her peers, can see all of this as a cautionary tale. 

Don't drink and drive. 
Don't smoke dope. 
And, if you're going down, ask for help ... but not via Twitter.

Love Hurts — But, It Shouldn't

The Grammy Awards were particularly sad this year, with the news of Whitney Houston's untimely death coming just the day before the music industry's biggest celebration.

We were up in Vermont when we heard about it. One of the teenage boys in our ski house had booted up his laptop so we could watch some videos. "Whitney Houston died," he announced matter-of-factly as his browser came up. There were four adults in the house and we were stunned. We all thought about that beautiful young girl with the glorious voice first. And the troubled middle-aged woman she became second.

With very little time to prepare, the Grammys team pulled together a tribute that was perfect in its simplicity. Accompanied only by a piano, Jennifer Hudson came out and did a soulful version of Houston's most famous (and most heartbreaking) hit "I Will Always Love You." She seemed to choke up a little but made it through, knowing that she was singing for all of us. I was reminded of Elton John's courageous rendition of "Candle in the Wind" at Princess Diana's funeral nearly fifteen years ago. Both brought me to tears.

In hindsight, I'm troubled by an unspoken but pervasive theme that lay beneath the ceremony. For me, the loss of Whitney Houston and other gifted musicians is sad of course, but less disturbing than the fact that the entertainment industry (and society as consumers of that industry) turns a blind eye to violence against women. One might even argue that the industry glorifies it. As a feminist and a mother, I found it interesting that the music world was mourning the loss of a woman who was allegedly beaten and whose drug use (and most likely whose death itself) was the result of an abusive relationship with another musician. At the same time, the Grammys were celebrating the "come back" of Chris Brown, another musician accused of beating up his girlfriend, pop star Rihanna.

Am I overreacting? I don't think so. According to BuzzFeed, here's what girls were tweeting during Brown's Grammy performance Sunday night:

Everyone shut up about Chris brown being a woman beater... Shiiiittt he can beat me up all night if he wants

Chris Brown could serenade me and then punch me in the eye. I'm down for it.

Call me crazy buttttttttt I would let Chris Brown beat me up anyyyy day

ok not gonna lie i'd let chris brown beat the eff out of me

And my personal favorite:

Dude, Chris brown can punch me in the face as much as wants to, just as long as he kisses it ( :

The smiley emoticon is a nice touch, don't you think? My God, what is wrong with these girls?!?

Here's what's wrong. They listen to lyrics that glorify the fusion of sex and pain. They are surrounded by media that objectify women's bodies. They are citizens of a country in which women's health and reproductive rights are being threatened.

Violence against women is marginalized by the very language with which it is defined. With its added modifier, "domestic violence" becomes a less serious form of "violence." It's ASSAULT, people. Whether a person was in a relationship with their assailant before getting a fist in the face is immaterial! It is VIOLENCE.

The same is true with the phrase "date rape." Is a rape somehow less horrific because a woman knows and perhaps had dinner with her rapist? I would argue that psychologically a rape committed by someone with whom a person was building trust would be more traumatic not less. Regardless, and I repeat, it is ASSAULT. It is VIOLENCE.

And, what about Rihanna? Because she herself was the victim of violence, her song "S&M" is irresponsible and offensive. I thought about using a picture of Rihanna's bruised face for this post. (It probably would have meant more readers.) But, I decided to use a photo of a girl who looks like she wants to fight back.

Men need to stop hitting. Women need to defend their sisters — through words, legal action, or in the case of celebrities like Rihanna, through the media and their fan base. The entertainment industry needs to take a stand. The judicial system needs to draft and enforce stricter laws. Mothers need to teach our daughters that if he hits you, he does not love you. Period. Real love does not hurt in that way.

I hope we will someday see violence against women taken seriously. I hope we will someday all agree to a zero tolerance policy where violence against women is concerned. No matter who is involved or how many records he can sell.

But, we are not there yet. In fact, this morning I heard that Rihanna and Chris Brown are collaborating on a song together.

Maybe they should do a cover of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby, One More Time."

Playback When It Matters

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone in there?"

One of the frustrations of mothering a tween is that you hear yourself talking and talking and talking (and talking and talking), but you don't get much in the way of feedback. You are continually faced with the same decision ... Do you acknowledge that no one is listening? Or do you keep talking?

I'm of the keep talking mindset myself. It might be that I have a classic "the show must go on" attitude from years of theatre training (and some performances in fairly empty theatres). It might be that I'm afraid of the silence that would pervade my home if I shut my mouth. Or, it might be that somewhere inside this tired old mom, there is still an optimist.

I figure that if I keep going, something I say will eventually sink in.

So, I duly praise the good report cards, tell my daughter ad nauseum that I'm proud of her, recite platitudes about hard work and treating people with respect. I make observations about politics, media, fashion, and the teen celebrities who are held up as role models.

To her credit, my daughter doesn't usually interrupt me, point out that I'm repeating myself, or even roll her eyes. She just goes about her business. Like all of her generation, she is an accomplished multi-tasker. She can text a friend, listen to music, flip through the latest issue of Seventeen and still, apparently, hang on my every word. Or not. It's hard to tell because whether I'm asking her to pick up her pajamas or I'm revealing the mystery of the sphinx, her reaction is pretty much the same. As in ... there is no reaction.

One of the topics that I feel compelled to lecture on over and over and over again is feminism. I came of age in the 70s and some of my role models were Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Barbara Seaman. I was a junior volunteer on Shirley Chisholm's campaign; I have a treasured copy of the first issue of Ms. magazine. And, it worries me that my daughter and her friends assume that they won't face any discrimination when the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923, still isn't part of the Constitution.

In addition to the issue of gender equality, I am often confronted with examples of socially accepted exploitation and violence against women, whether they show up in music videos, reality shows or tabloid headlines. I think it's my duty to point these things out to my daughter so that she stops and thinks about them. I'd like to hope that someday she and her peers will be in a position to change their society.

Recently, my daughter and I were listening to Kiss 108!, the local pop station, much adored by the tween crowd here. Rihanna's latest song "S&M" was playing. The song is certainly catchy (all my Zumba teachers are using it these days) and its risqué premise and lyrics assure that it gets a lot of airtime.

The song, as the title implies, celebrates sadomasochism. The lyrics include, such poetic lines as:

"Feels so good being bad (oh oh oh oh oh)

There's no way I'm turning back (oh oh oh oh oh)

Now the pain is my pleasure cause nothing could measure ..."

And the catchy chorus (which has all the middle age matrons in my Zumba class chuckling) is:

"Cause I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it

Sex in the air, I don't care,

I love the smell of it

Sticks and stones may break my bones

But chains and whips excite me."

Now, I'm not a prude and I can appreciate that consenting adults have a right to any fetish that makes them feel good. But, this is where we have to look at the bigger picture. Early in 2009, Rihanna's boyfriend Chris Brown may or may not have roughed up the then 20-year old singer enough that she landed in the hospital instead of at the Grammy Awards. Domestic violence, which is still treated by the media and the police as some less serious subset of assault and battery, is rampant in this country. And, horrifying as it may sound, incidents of boyfriends beating on their girlfriends (and far less often, the other way around) start with teens. According to the Journal of Pediatrics, two in ten teen girls say they have been physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.

Isn't there something wrong then when Rihanna, a woman whose bruised face was plastered on newspaper front pages two years ago, sings of the joys of chains and whips?

So, I was about to launch into yet another of my speeches when my daughter interrupted.

"This song really pisses me off," she told me. "She could make a difference and instead she's just making money."

As you can imagine, my heart was filled with pride and I felt as though all my years of talking had been worth it.

But, she had said her piece. And, before I could even nod my head, she went back to her iPhone.