Lindsay Lohan’s career is on the wane – the films have dried up, the music’s gone AWOL and the fashion is hopeless.
What can she do for money? Simple, the same thing you’d do if you found your employment prospects compromised by bad personal and professional decisions – she’s suing an online share-trading firm for allegedly stealing her identity in an advert about a talking baby called Lindsay who’s a ‘milkaholic’.
For claiming that a drunk baby stole her identity, you might assume that Lindsay Lohan has lost her marbles – but hear her out. After all, it’s not as if she’s suing E-Trade for a hopelessly inflated, Dr Evil-style sum of money that would instantly make you question her basic relationship with reality, is it? What? She’s suing E-Trade for $100 million? Okaaaay.
It must be so awesome being Lindsay Lohan. Sure, it’s dried up professionally for her a bit, and she still seems like a bit of a mess, but think of all the things she can do. She gets to go to all the coolest parties. Her voice is so deep and gravelly that she can legitimately phone restaurants and book tables under the pretence that she’s either Morgan Freeman or the dead mother from Psycho. And she gets to believe that every single thing that happens on the face of the planet is somehow related to her.
Like the E-Trade advertising campaign, for instance. If you’ve never seen an E-Trade commercial, you’re basically missing out on a short video of a talking baby. It’s not funny, it’s not clever, but it has stolen Lindsay Lohan’s identity wholesale. At least according to Lindsay Lohan, it has. One recent E-Trade advert featured a talking baby called Lindsay who was described as e a ‘milkaholic’. Look, here it is…
And Lindsay Lohan’s understandable reaction to that was… well, let’s let EW take over:
The Mean Girls star claims that one of the online brokerage?s recent TV ads featuring a ditzy, ?milkaholic? baby girl named Lindsay is modeled after her and improperly invoked her ?likeness, name, characterization, and personality? without permission, violating her right to privacy. Lohan is suing for $50 million in compensatory damages and an additional $50 million in exemplary damages.
Now, look. We’re not lawyers or anything, and we’d rather not get involved in any of this, but let’s try and smooth things out by breaking down Lindsay Lohan’s claims to see how well they stand up.
Likeness – Hard to argue, surely. If the baby really was modelled on Lindsay Lohan, then it wouldn’t really look like a baby – it’d look like a structurally-compromised Terrahawk puppet, have the voice of Dr Claw from Inspector Gadget, chainsmoke and often forget to wear knickers in public. But it didn’t. It looked like a baby.
Name – True, the baby was called Lindsay. But Lindsay Lohan isn’t the only Lindsay or Lindsey on the planet. Surely if Lindsay Lohan can win $100 million from this then Lindsey Buckingham, Lindsey Shaw, Robert Lindsay, the entire town of Lindsay, Nebraska and the Lindsey Hopkins Technical Centre in Santa Clara, California deserve something as well.
Characterisation and personality – Here’s where we think Lindsay Lohan’s claim really falls down. For starters, the Lindsay in the advert was a milkaholic – but Lindsay Lohan isn’t addicted to milkahol, she’s addicted to alcohol. That’s a big difference. Also, you can more or less understand what the E-Trade Lindsay is trying to say, which nobody has really been able to do with Lindsay Lohan since about 2004. Finally, at no point during the commercial did E-Trade Lindsay attempt to sue an embryo called Lindsay for $100 million just because it had the same name as her.
But, hey, what do we know?
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shooty* says
Awesome.
Big props for the terrahawks reference too.
lpf20 says
I can’t tell you how impressed I am that Lindsey Buckingham was the first other Lindsay you thought of. And spelt correctly too. My admiration knows no bounds.
Eugene says
Can you say “publicity stunt”?
Larry says
If we have to choose between this one e-Trade commercial and Linday, then the commercial wins hands down. After all, the e-trade babies, and this commercial in particular, are endearingly funny and entertaining, while Lindsay is not.
If this was intended to be a publicity stunt, Lindsay and her attorneys made a monumental miscalculation of how it would play out in the arena of public opinion. She will likley hear about this for many, many, many years to come and will likely go down as one of the most memorable celebrity bonehead moves. I can’t wait to see how SNL and others will mock her spectacular arrogance.
Mark says
What if….if the baby’s name was actually Linsey with no “d”? Maybe she could sue the US phonics department.
davey says
there is no “d” in linsey, I assume you mean no “d” in lindsey :)