She's young,
she's messy, she fights with her sometime girlfriend, and
she's been to rehab -- but she's leading the charge for
marriage equality in the process.
COMMENTARY: Lindsay
Lohan's recently released
faux eHarmony profile
is perhaps the most brilliant 90 seconds in the young
actor's career. She simultaneously manages to poke fun at
herself, her relationship with Sam Ronson, and eHarmony -- a
homophobic dating website that would never allow her to post an
ad looking for a "man or a woman."
But when I posted a
link to the video on my Facebook page, I received comments like
"she's young and immature and well -- who cares?"
The answer: I care.
Deeply. And so should anyone who's concerned with the future of
queer rights and visibility in the United States.
It can't be stated
strongly enough: Lindsay Lohan is unlike any other LGBT
celebrity to come before her. She's young, she's beautiful,
she's A-list -- and at the top of her career, she began
publicly dating a woman. This is not the coy
"maybe/maybe-not" game that other young celebs have played,
or the outing of a former star. It's worlds beyond the
occasional kiss or the admission of having "dated women in
the past," which until now was the most radical truth that
Hollywood stars would own up to.
While never choosing a
label and avoiding public statements, Lindsay Lohan lived her
relationship with Sam Ronson in the public eye almost exactly,
one feels, as she would have had she not been famous. They
partied, they made out, they fought, they bought groceries. And
yes, I read about it every time. Not just because I love
gossip, but because Lindsay Lohan is both representative of and
at the forefront of an important cultural shift in the way
sexuality plays out in the public sphere. She is the first of a
new post-identity wave.
And it is this same
wave that is helping to win the fight for same-sex marriage --
as well as other queer issues like adoption by same-sex
parents, hate-crimes bills, and discrimination protections. In
the aftermath of the Prop. 8 vote in California, an important
set of data came out: 63% of voters ages 18 to 29 rejected the
initiative, but 54% of voters 45 to 64 supported
it.
If that's not a
generational shift, then what is?
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This article is
representative of the author's views and not those of
Advocate.com.