RIP, Wednesday Addams

For a time in the mid 90's, it seems like it was possible to be famous and not look like Lindsay Lohan looks now. Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci, even Drew Barrymore were all kind of considered to be hot, but in a quirky, offbeat way. (Remember when Drew Barrymore was all about being bisexual and wearing daisies in her hair and was kind of weird? I thought she was sooo beautiful when she looked like this and this. I thought it was so edgy when she dyed her hair black.) Looking at this photo of Gaby Hoffman and Christina really makes me kind of sad. They're just at a premiere or something looking totally normal, like they picked their own clothes and put on their own eyeliner and semi-combed their own hair. And they were famous! Little girls liked them!

The point is, I also thought Christina Ricci was totally cool as well. Obviously she had played Wednesday Addams, a character my friends and I thought was totally badass even though my friend Lucy never let me play her in games and I always had to be one of those terrible blond girls. Then she was in Now and Then, which is a great movie for young girls, and she played this surly tomboy character and it was awesome.

Then she got older and she started wearing lots of black eyeliner and looking angry and showing up in outfits magazines said were "unflattering" and she was all rebellious and stuff and she seemed like she really didn't care about buying into that evil Hollywood game and all. It was just so cool that she seemed kind of smart and slightly chubby and awkward and normal looking. It seemed so appropriate she would, at fourteen or whatever, react to fame in this way instead of having a weave and smiling a lot and being the sort of creepy idealized teen starlet.But then she just ended up in the same role over and over- the trashy fantasy Lolita. Seriously, how many times has she played someone involved with someone a lot older than her who ends up getting abused in some way? A million? I mean, Black Snake Moan? Did that fucking movie really come out? Could the premise have been any more offensive? And, obviously, she lost a lot of weight, got a breast reduction, started wearing "tasteful" outfits and clearly got a terrible pointy nose job as evidenced in that photo where she is wearing pink. She actually looks like she got her eyes done too, now that she is, like 26 or whatever I guess it is about time to start venturing into that plastic surgery no-man's land where no matter what age you are, you look perpetually jagged and scary and alarmed.

I'm sure the pressure of being even semi-normal looking in Hollywood is very hard to bear, and it really just seems to be getting worse and worse in terms of letting people look different. Every time I see a photo of Christina now, looking all hungry and bony in some fugly designer dress, it makes me shed a (metaphorical) tear for the girl who once wore lots of black and flame capris and looked pissed off and seemed like she had the potential to be interesting.